


Never Come Back

by Zatnikatel



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-27
Updated: 2013-10-27
Packaged: 2017-12-30 15:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 86,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1020485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zatnikatel/pseuds/Zatnikatel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the immediate aftermath of their close encounter with Alastair, the brothers chase a demon whose victims all have one thing in common…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Damage

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in S4, and follows on from _[The Woods are Lonely, Dark and Deep](http://archiveofourown.org/works/561329)_ , and _[The Killing Moon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/611635)_. Ostensibly a genfic, but includes non-explicit references to Dean/Kathleen Hudak, and can also be read as Dean/Castiel pre-slash. Originally posted 2010, at LiveJournal.
> 
>  **Warnings** Bad language, references to torture and rape.

The john is thirtyish, give or take. He blows on his fingers, flutters long thick eyelashes, stamps his feet on the snowy soil to keep his shoes from freezing to the ground.

He keeps shooting nervous glances back up to the main road, and his caution means the dance has been a slow one; covetous glances for the last three nights, as he hovers at the top of the alleyway, fleeting eye contact and a shy smile just for him, to say he's special, to draw him in. And now here he is, finally close enough to touch. And he _is_ special, he might be the one where all the others weren't, might match up to the long treasured, hazy image of _that_ face, filed away in a mental scrapbook of memories.

"I never did this before," the man mutters. "I don't pay for it." Even so, he looks at his shoes, toes the slushy earth. "How much?"

It's a business transaction, no tiptoeing around it, no dinner and a movie, no getting to know each other. But if he's the one, then they had a _past_ , and that means they can have a future.

"Blowjob's twenty-five, a ride's thirty-five or forty bareback. Off the menu starts at fifty."

"Fifty?" His reply is high-pitched, nervous. "I only have thirty-five."

"Well then. For you, off the menu is thirty-five." Smile, enticing, low voice, promising. "I can make you feel like you never felt before. You want to try something new? Get it dirty like you never did before? I can make it real good."

More skittish glances at late night drinkers lurching past the top of the alleyway, and he's taking a few steps back towards the street.

_No, come back. Be him._

"I have somewhere we can go. It's not too far… it's private. Clean. Just me and my cat. You can do whatever you like, everything your woman won't let you do…"

The john glances back, unsure. "And it's close by?"

"Five-minute walk, boy. You up for it? You want to do all those things you feel guilty for dreaming about? Put it where it's never been? Hurt me good? All for just thirty-five bucks…"

Backing away, slow steps, head canted to the side, _innocent_. The hook is right there in his cheek, got that boy good, and he might be the one. And if he isn't, it's meat for dinner tonight.

"I'm going to make you scream," the john blurts out, and his eyes go wide with astonishment at his own nerve.

Smile, slow, tongue curling up to lick lips, slow steps back into the shadows, whispering. "I'm going to make you scream too… I'm going to do things to you that you never even heard of."

The deputy clearly has better things to do on a Monday night than drive around looking for whoever beat some drunk to within an inch of his life and robbed him. He grunts a few comments about Dean's blood alcohol level and casts enough distracted glances at his wristwatch that Sam wants to rip it off his arm and feed it to him whole, even as he breathes a mental sigh of relief for small towns where local law enforcement is at home in bed by nine. In the circumstances, he thinks, his brother being written off as a deadbeat rolled in the parking lot is a win, because they can damn well do without the cops sniffing about.

Sam feels old beyond his years as a doctor who looks sixteen at the most, or at the very least fresh out of medical school, chatters on with the bright-eyed enthusiasm of youth about disc-like fingertip marks, linear fingernail scratches, petechial hemorrhage, bruising of the strap muscles, lateral compression of the larynx, severe dyspnea. She perks up even more for the punchline, which is that the hyoid bone, whatever the hell that is, is undamaged, and that's a good thing, before concluding with a flourish that Dean was strangled.

"Manually, not with a ligature," she chirps animatedly. "And it's a good job they went for the trachea and larynx, since that's a slower method that requires considerably more pressure to achieve a hypoxic state in the brain."

Sam smiles weakly as she cheerfully sees the bright side: that someone got there in the nick of to prevent his brother's larynx from being crushed to a pulp, and his airway closing up so rapidly he would likely have asphyxiated before they even got him in the car, maybe even before Sam finished playing with Alastair.

"I'm so glad I was on call," the woman witters on. "You usually have to be a forensic pathologist to see laryngeal injuries secondary to manual strangulation. We otolaryngologists usually aren't that lucky."

Not just Dean's lucky day then, Sam thinks wearily.

"We've set his nose and relocated his jaw. We went in through the nostrils and realigned it all, and there's some antibiotic packing up there in case of infection. The jaw went back in nicely and looks pretty stable, but he's looking at soft foods for the next few weeks, and he'll need to support it when—"

She breaks off, shoots a look over to the doorway, and Sam follows her gaze, feels his tension amp up even higher when he sees who is hovering in the doorway. "It's okay," he forces out through gritted teeth. "He's a friend."

"He'll need to support it when he yawns, or it could pop out again," the woman continues, and somewhere under the thrill of achievement, the still-tantalizing effervescence of _her_ blood inside him, and his dull fear for his brother, Sam notes that she's practically devouring Castiel with her eyes as he walks around the top of the bed to sit opposite them. He smirks inwardly. _Junkless_.

"If that's a problem, we can bandage underneath the jaw and up around the top of his head. Sir?"

Blinking at her, Sam flaps his lips for a second before he catches up. "I'm sorry… if what's a problem?"

"His jaw," she says. "If it pops out."

"It could pop out?" Sam echoes her idiotically, and can hardly blame her for the flash of irritation in her eyes.

"Yes… if he yawns too widely. Like I said," she repeats slowly, because she just heard the _stoopid_ bell clang. "We can bandage under it and up over his head if that becomes an issue. He'll need to be careful."

Trying to rein back some degree of authority, Sam clears his throat. "And when will he wake up?"

"He's sedated at the moment… there's a lot of swelling in his throat, hence the tube. We'll be taking that out later, once the swelling around his larynx reduces." She jots something down in the chart, hooks it back on the end of Dean's bed. "Oh, and nothing too hot either, he has some lacerations as well as the crush damage to the larynx, and hot drinks and foods will be uncomfortable for him."

Sam nods, and all the while he's casting glances beyond the woman, beyond his brother too, to the other side of the bed, where Castiel is miles away, meditating or something.

As soon as the woman leaves, Sam blurts it out. "Are you going to tell him?"

The angel turns his head, and like he always does when he falls under Castiel's remote blue gaze, Sam feels a momentary chill deep down. It's the icy reminder that although Castiel wears a man, he is an otherworldly creature, something from another dimension. Alien is the word that springs to mind more than angelic; it's in the perfectly level set of Castiel's head, his ramrod posture, his serenity, his cool detachment from everything and everyone but Sam's brother, because Dean is the one Castiel looks to, and explains to, and raises his voice to, and narrows his eyes at. Dean is the only one who matters, and Sam is just along for the ride, only important insofar as his connection to Dean. Dean, who doesn't even fucking _believe_ , and the usual spark of bitterness flares bright as Sam thinks it.

He stares it out for as long as he can, but he can't keep it up. He thinks maybe Castiel doesn't even need to blink, so he's damn well cheating anyway. "You could make him better, heal him," he dares again, even though the angel has already shot that one down in flames, even though his own rage has gone off the boil, lost in warm satisfaction at the fact he achieved what they all wanted to and couldn't, the boy with demon blood doing the Lord's work. It's vindication, maybe even incontrovertible proof that the angels bet on the wrong Winchester in this particular race, and that maybe God has work for _him_.

Castiel stares back at Sam, his features as impassive as always. "I'm not permitted to intercede. In any case, the exorcism weakened me."

The response isn't challenging, might even be mild, and Sam takes advantage, snapping, "Even more?" He shakes his head in disbelief, and yeah, maybe he laces it with something that might be disdain as he recalls the last time the angel went up against Alastair. "You let that low-level scum get the jump on you _again_? I thought you guys were warriors of God?"

"The Host is weakened by its recent losses," Castiel replies evenly. "And I was somewhat distracted by my fears for your brother."

Sam doesn't know for sure if there's a subtext there or not, but he shuts out the voice in his head that reminds him he wasn't distracted from Alastair one iota, that he barely looked at Dean's crumpled body on the ground while he toyed with the demon, that he tuned out his brother's labored wheezing like it was white noise, didn't even call Dean's name. _Take out the threat first_ , he thinks. It was strategy, pure and simple, and he steadies his voice. "Well then, maybe a warning might have been in order before you beamed my brother into the same room as that thing. You knew, you _knew_ Dean wasn't up to it. So it's a tad late to be saying that you and your feathered friends aren't up to it either. And more to the point, Dean said no."

Castiel considers Sam for a moment, tilts his head. "And yet he agreed."

It's as neutral, as placid as ever, and Sam bristles. "Well, what emotional fucking blackmail did you pull to get your way? Because he didn't want revenge." And out of the blue it flits through Sam's mind, _Lilith's head on a plate, bloody_ , Dean's deflated, disappointed expression in response. On it heels comes the uncomfortable feeling that his own obsessive need for payback, for retribution, is pissing all over his brother's anxiety and fear. _Dean said no_ , he thinks, just like Dean has said no to him, with his eyes, with his words, and finally with his fists; and how fucking ironic it is that he expects an angel of the Lord to respect his brother's wishes when he won't do it himself.

He buries it, heaps sand on it to soak up his acid deception before it burns, keeps going even though the words ring hollow, and he thinks maybe Castiel knows it. "He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to go back to doing that, _being_ that. Which means that he did this for you. And you can tell that prick Uriel that if he—"

"Uriel is dead."

That pulls Sam up short, even shuts him up, albeit briefly. "The angel killer?" he says, once it computes. "Alastair said it's not Lilith, and I think he was telling the truth."

"It was Uriel," Castiel confirms, and to give him some credit, Sam thinks he may even sound apologetic as he continues. "He was working against us, working to undermine the Host and free Lucifer. He broke the trap and set Alastair free to torture your brother anew."

It may well be the most the angel has ever said directly to Sam since the first time they met, and Sam pushes violently up, the chair tipping over and crashing to the floor behind him. On the bed, Dean shifts uneasily at the noise, frowning and making small, hurt sounds that score Sam's nerves, because he doesn't know, he doesn't know anymore whether he's mad at his brother or mad _because_ of his brother, because Dean isn't fighting any more. His sudden irritation is like a barrier thrown up in that split second of acknowledging that he's so fucking angry at Dean's _fearfulness_ , because he doesn't want to think it might be cowardice; so fucking angry that he doesn't know where it begins and where it ends.

Sam can't even bring himself to reach out, to touch, to comfort, as Dean twitches and mutters, fists flexing restlessly. And Castiel looks from him to Dean, back and forth, and now he might even look anxious, his eyes widening and his frame tensing. And finally he lifts his hand from where it rests on his knee, drifts it up, and tentatively lays it over Dean's.

Dean curls his fingers around Castiel's, falls still immediately. The line between his eyes relaxes, and the low beep of the monitor slows down again.

Sam keeps his voice under control even as it turns venomous. "Aside from the fact that someone you trusted loosed that monster on my brother, this, all of it, could have been avoided if you had bothered to listen to him, and see what was staring you in the face, you sanctimonious prick," he says. "Dean isn't what he was, he's damaged, in ways you can't begin to know. But I know, because I know _him_."

Castiel has been gazing at his hand where it rests on Dean's, but now he looks up. "I know how damaged your brother is, and why," he says softly.

His eyes flicker away then, but not before Sam sees a glimmer of something that is unsettlingly like the look of appalled dread he sees in Dean's eyes sometimes, when he startles awake from his memories. It's fleeting, it's transient, it's gone when the angel meets Sam's gaze again, and maybe it was nothing more than a figment of his imagination.

"I was there. I saw him."

Sam huffs, derisive. "Well, it's a pity you didn't see your buddy Uriel sneaking around behind your back. If you had, none of this would have happened."

Castiel contemplates Sam for a few seconds before he speaks again. "That's not what I was referring to."

For a second Sam is confused, wonders what the angel means. When he gets it, it's like a gut punch, it blows the air out of him, winds him thoroughly, and he has to take a minute to walk his mind through the twisted, warped symmetry they present: the one who effectively damned his brother to Hell and failed to redeem him, and the one who shared the horror with Dean and was his salvation, squaring up to each other over the shell that remains. It makes Sam wants to sink his fist somewhere, and he runs with the feeling. "I got what you needed from that bastard within five minutes," he says. "So this _test_ , or whatever the fuck it was, could have been avoided." He stabs a finger down onto the bed, still riding high on his anger even if he knows he's in danger of pushing the angel too far. "Look at him," he hisses. "Look at him. You think he needs this? You should have taken me with you, not him. I'm stronger now, I can make all the difference in this fight. I'm the one you—"

"Your method was extremely effective, Sam," Castiel cuts in, his tone acidic. "Your abilities seem to have advanced. Considerably."

The angel is still unruffled, apparently composed, but it's all in his eyes. They laser into Sam now, making him feel pinned in place, making him feel uncomfortably like Castiel is sizing him up, considering, gauging, appraising; wondering just what Sam did to reach the point where he can accelerate from zero to sixty in five seconds flat. Sam is suddenly aware of static prickling in the atmosphere, dancing through him, sending the hairs on the back of his neck standing proud; and for all Castiel's stillness, Sam can't help feeling that the angel is poised to detonate and blow him to kingdom come.

Castiel still has his hand placed over Dean's, and Sam could swear there is provocation in that protective gesture, that he's being baited. But in a fraction of a second, the balance of power in the conversation has changed, and Sam ignores the bait, if that's even what this is. He sighs, bends to pick up his chair, and slumps into it. "I couldn't just stand there," he says. "I had to do something. As far as I could see he was ganking you, and Dean… _Jesus_. Dean." And Sam does reach out then, grasps his brother's other hand in his, runs his thumb over knuckles grazed and split when Dean tried to defend himself. He tries not to dwell on the worry shadowing his brother's face back in the motel room before he vanished, Dean's pain-fogged delirium as he tried to suck in air through his broken nose and ruined throat on the drive to the hospital.

Movement from opposite interrupts Sam's reverie, and he glances up to see Castiel discreetly removing his hand from Dean's, resting it back on his knee. The angel is still looking at Sam, and even if the freeze has gone from his eyes, they are as eloquent as they were a few hours before, when he looked from Alastair's crumpled, ravaged meatsuit to Sam and the message was a confused mix of awe and distaste, fascination and fear, because Castiel _saw_ , Sam knows he did. He saw the exhilaration, the satisfaction, the pleasure, the rush, the kill, the _power_ ; saw Sam Winchester bursting out of his skin in sheer glee at what he could do with this insidious black beast at his center.

Now the stare is a reminder that suggests Castiel is suspicious, that makes it abundantly clear Castiel is concerned, that tells Sam in no uncertain terms that he needs to try to make the angel understand. "What am I supposed to do?" he mutters. "You're telling us this is the end of the world, and it's the only real weapon we have. It's in me, and there's nothing I can do about it except try to do some good with it. Give me a chance. Please."

Time suspends itself for an endless second in that relentless gaze, and Sam blinks first, like always. "And he's my brother," he says softly. "I love him, and I'm keeping him in this world. I'll do whatever I have to do. Whatever it takes. And I don't give a damn what you think of me for it, Castiel, and I don't care what you and your God do about it."

Sam glances up to Dean's drawn, gray face, anxious even in sleep, and he feels ashamed for the anger, for the impatience that still bubbles inside him, feels his heart twist and curl in misery at the bruises, the cuts, the sorrow that seeps from Dean even though his brother isn't even conscious or aware. "Why do you even need him for this fight?" he whispers. "Can't you just leave him be. Leave him in peace. Doesn't he deserve that?" He slants his eyes across to the angel. "He's a good man, and he's suffered enough."

Castiel blinks first this time. "It's not my decision, Sam. And I am sorry for that."

It's one of those crisply cold nights that bounces moonbeams up off the frost and snow, all black ice shining, the kind of lonely, empty night that needs a fifties film-noir voiceover and Richard Widmark in a fedora, running numbers for the mob; the kind of night with a thousand eyes that exists outside the bright lights and picture windows of an Edward Hopper diner.

Hudak's breath freezes as she exhales, and just like it always has since that day it hung suspended in the air before she swung an iron chain through something that wasn't possible, the mist that puffs out ahead of her sends a reflexive buzz of fear up and down her spine. Her boots crunch on ice crystals, _like bone fragments_ , as she gingerly picks her way across the street to the small huddle under the trees. _Duluth, duh_ , she thinks, apropos of nothing. "I should have picked Sarasota," she mutters under her breath.

"Looks like another one, Katie. It ain't pretty, so brace yourself."

Hudak grimaces as she peers down over the big man's shoulder. "That's… thorough."

The man nods. "Face sliced clean off, like the others. Looks like it'll be dental records again if anyone shows up to report him missing."

She has a strong stomach, can usually hold onto its contents, but Hudak feels acid flare hotly in her gullet, has to put her hand up to her mouth and look away for a second. The body looks to be a young guy like the others. What's left of him, and she studiously avoids looking above his neck, the fleeting glimpse of exposed, lidless eyeballs and bared teeth set against glistening red and glowing ivory enough to last her a lifetime. She gestures towards his ruined chest. "No heart?"

"You got it. Jonesie put his hand in and rummaged some for it, but nada," the man says. He sniggers at the face Hudak pulls, and pushes up with a groan, grabbing her arm for support. "Help an old guy up, Katie. Yep, looks to be the same MO, so we're guessing no heart."

"You know, Coop, shedding a few pounds would help your knees," Hudak says offhandedly. "So. I think we can safely assume this isn't a suicide. CSI on their way? Medical examiner?"

"Yeah." The man pulls his coat tighter around him. "Jesus. My ass is freezing off out here, and I need a cigarette. Let's wait in the car."

He ferrets in his pocket as they walk, pulls out a pack of Camels, lights up and inhales deeply, puffs out a smoke circle.

Hudak clears her throat critically. "You know, Coop, quitting that habit would help your—"

"It calms me down," he parries, because this is a routine they both have down-pat now. Blowing out another lungful of smoke that wafts away on the breeze, he shakes his head. "Who would do something like that to another human being?" he ponders. "It's like some kind of monster's had at him. Werewolf or something."

The word gives Hudak an uncomfortable, edgy feeling, like a bone-deep itch she can't scratch, and she gives her friend a hard stare. "Do you believe in things like that, Coop?"

He clicks his tongue. "Don't need werewolves when we got people, Katie," he says. "People are the biggest monsters of all. You should know that, all those body parts the Feds found up at the old Bender place."

She can't stop the shiver the name engenders, has to focus on thinking past jars of teeth, past depravity and evil and things that can't be, past burns, and bites, and beartraps, past scars, and suffering, and tears, past the charnel pit. _Past the Winchesters_. But it isn't easy. "Werewolves do take the heart, you know," she muses quietly.

Coop scoots his eyebrows up. "Werewolves take the heart?" he scoffs. "Don't tell me _you_ believe that crap, Katie."

Hudak shrugs. "Too much X-Files, Coop." She gestures across the road, to where a streetlamp feebly lights the mouth of an alleyway leading off the main street. "Think any of the hookers might have seen whoever dumped the vic?"

He shakes his head. "Checked it out, nobody there. Too cold even for the ladies tonight." His eyes wander as he opens the car door. "Diner's just opening," he gestures. "Coffee and donuts would be good." He winks. "It's your turn."

Hudak rolls her eyes, but she turns and starts walking, tries to ignore the feeling she's had since the first body turned up, the feeling that she's missing something. "The Werewolf Killer," she throws back over her shoulder. "The press is going to love that, Coop. Might even get you that promotion. Just think how many man hours we'd have wasted trying to whiteboard a snappy nickname for this guy without you here."

Ruby has this habit of wrapping herself around Sam after they fuck, like all of her limbs are prehensile monkey tails that entwine themselves up his legs and torso, like this is somehow real, like they're teens in the first flush of love, like it's serious instead of what it is. Whatever that is. When Sam tries to untangle himself, she digs her nails in to grip his flesh, and he knows his brother would say she had her claws in deep like the cat she is.

She's doing it now as she whispers, "Tell me again," from under the cloud of hair spread across his chest. "Tell me about Alastair."

Sam smiles, because even three days later the thrill still fizzes through his veins, turns his blood into the best vintage champagne. "I've told you a hundred times," he murmurs. "Isn't it getting old yet?"

Her hands wander up and down his belly, sending shivers dancing across his skin.

"Nope, it's not old," she purrs. "It's foreplay."

Sam he feels the cool, moist trail of her tongue across his hip, and his dick twitches. "Bastard never saw what hit him," he mutters. "I had him up against that wall…" He groans as her fingers close around him. "Jesus. Lower. No… to the right." _Fuck_.

"What did you do then?" she teases, and her hand is strong and sure, like always. "Did you squeeze… real… tight…"

She is tiny on top of him, her eyes dancing, and Sam gives himself to the sensations. "I had him pinned… and I reached for him…uh… and squeezed the sonofabitch, and—"

"You pulled him," she hisses into his skin, and his eyes slam shut as his hands tangle in her _wrong-color_ hair. "You held him tight and you pulled him."

"Harder," Sam chokes out as she works. "Had him tight… _tighter_. And I pulled… _more_ , it took… more than that, ripped, _ripped_ it out of him… Ruby. Uh… Ruby. _Ruby_."

She is laughing as he cries out and convulses into her hand, and as he pants it down, she stares at him and smiles. "I guess I just ganked little Sammy."

"Bitch," Sam tells her.

Smirking, she replies, "Jerk."

She doesn't know, can't possibly know the significance of the exchange, and it always gives Sam a chill when she says it, the weird, wrong appropriation of his brother's odd term of endearment. He ignores it, reaches to pull the sheet up over him as she stretches luxuriantly.

"My favorite part is when he has your brother's wingman hanging up on the meathook," she says. "Alastair had style, I'll give him that."

And that's a bridge too far, and Sam tells her so. "I don't need to hear crap like that from you, Ruby," he snaps. "That prick tortured my brother to death over and over for thirty years." He makes his voice cold and hard, and he sees something like doubt flicker in her eyes. "Do you think that was stylish? Do you think he did it with panache, and flair? Do you think my brother hung there from his hooks thinking how fucking dashing Alastair looked while he was being flayed alive?"

Ruby rolls off of him, and she's silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, Sam," she ventures then, her tone cautious. "It just came out… he's an angel, there's a needle there, you know? Like the Bloods and the Crips. I didn't mean to… about Dean. I didn't think."

Sam huffs. "Well, think next time."

She nods, shifts closer. "I thought Dean wasn't saying much about Hell."

"He doesn't say it," Sam mutters. "He screams it. When he dreams."

Ruby nods, and her eyes are warm with sympathy. "It must be hard for you," she says earnestly. "To see him so broken. Weak. It's good that you can protect him… that you're stronger. He needs that now, Sam. Especially if Castiel isn't up to the job."

Sam nods and she starts rubbing circles on his chest.

"He needs you to be strong," she whispers. "He needs you to keep getting stronger, to protect him, to protect the seals. It's good that you're doing this for him, Sam. He's lucky to have you."

Some small part of Sam likes to remind Ruby that he controls this thing they have.


	2. Secrets and Lies

Dean sits and waits for his brother, AMA discharge papers crammed into his hip pocket. He glances up at the odd nurse striding purposefully by, and sometimes they look back at him and start to curl the corners of their mouths up, but then it's like a shadow falls over their faces, and something colder shines out of their eyes.

Dean knows it isn't the gash at the bridge of his nose, the dark bruises around his eyes, the livid ring of purplish-black that circles his throat. The packaging is marked some, but the jaw and the shoulder have been popped back in, the broken nose realigned. He's still pretty. He knows it's what they see staring back at them, what they see in his eyes. They see desolation, and fear, and horror, and suffering. They see Hell screaming, and writhing, and aching inside him.

He swallows, flinches, reaches a hand up to touch his neck almost unconsciously, can feel his hand shaking. _Voice rest!_ , the doc snapped at him somewhere in the daze of pain, and bewilderment, and wondering why his angel was sitting vigil by his bed and not his brother. And he doesn't want to think about that again, doesn't want to think about where Sam might be, what he might be doing, who he might be with, because he's exhausted by it all, by the worry, by the fear, by the responsibility.

He remembers reading somewhere that Frank Zappa's voice lowered by a third after he crushed his larynx falling backwards into an orchestra pit during a show, so he husks that out to Castiel even though talking is like the drip, drip, drip of acid searing his flesh off his bones. And if anyone should know how that feels it's him, even though there usually wasn't enough of his mind left intact for him to register exactly how it felt when the acid reached his throat. Maybe it equates to the acid dripping on his eyelids, he muses, or other tender parts on the outside of him, the parts he does remember in vivid technicolor because he was compos mentis at the time.

Castiel just sits there staring into the middle distance and looking enigmatic, so Dean grinds it out again.

"I said, Frank Zappa's voice—"

"I'm aware of this, Dean," Castiel says calmly, just like he says everything, just like he said _Dean, you started the end of the world and now you have to stop it_. And how the fuck is Dean supposed to do that, when his heart flutters in abject terror at the thought it might mean what Alastair said as it all went dark, _I'll see you back in class, bright and early, Monday morning…_

"Mr Zappa was wheelchair-bound after his accident, which forced him off the road for over half a year," Castiel drones _calmly, fuckin' calmly_. "Upon his return to the stage in September nineteen seventy-two, he was wearing a leg brace, had a noticeable limp due to one leg healing considerably shorter than the other, and could not stand for very long while performing live because of chronic back pain."

Dean glares, even though the pain in the front of his head makes him regret it instantly. "Okay, smartass," he rasps. "Where did Bon Scott die?"

"I believe Mr Scott died of alcohol poisoning while sleeping it off in a car parked outside number sixty-seven Overhill Road, in East Dulwich, South London." Castiel pauses. "Dean. This is not—"

"You mean you were there?" Dean croaks, aghast. "You call that watching over people? Couldn't you have given him the magic finger or something?"

"Dean." It's patient, kind, it's _I will wait for as long as it takes_. "We need to talk. The situation with your brother is—"

Dean narrows his eyes and sets his jaw, wincing at the twinge. "No," he scratches out. "I know your game, you sonofabitch. You can pull all the Frank Zappa-Bon Scott male-bonding crap you like. Sam couldn't do that. You're lying. Look at me."

Castiel obliges, and his eyes are as clear and guileless as they ever were, because the real gut-clenching misery in all of this is that deep down inside Dean thinks Castiel might be the only one in the equation who isn't jerking his chain, pulling the wool, laying a false trail, serving up red herrings for dinner _every fuckin' night_. Like his brother is. His kid brother, who pleaded with Dean to end him if he ever became like those other demon kids, his kid brother who he died for, suffered for; who first swore he hadn't been using his shining and then swore he never would again. The same kid brother who's been looking Dean in the eye and spoon-feeding him bullshit with frosting and sprinkles on since Pontiac, and who might not be one hundred percent pure Sammy any more.

The disillusionment feeds Dean's faith and his trust through the shredder, turns his hope into wretched despair. "Admit it, Cas," he whispers desperately. "You're lying. Tell me. Tell me that you lied when you said that."

Castiel's eyes are infinitely sad, and wise, and knowing. And truthful. "I don't say these things to hurt you, Dean," he says, gentle. "It's because you need to know them."

"But how, how could he, ow, _fuck_ …" Yawn alert, and Dean knows the drill, but he reaches too fast and sends a glass shard of agony through his shoulder and ribs. He cradles his jaw and the side of his face, groans out a sort of _yawn-lite_ , can feel the bone grinding and clicking there at the joint as his ear throbs forcibly. In his head, he can hear the doctor yakking away at him when they brought him round, brandishing one of those plastic Hamlet skulls, _the angle of the mandible in this position predisposes upward migration of the condylar head and can result in facial nerve palsy, cerebral contusion, or deafness, so you've been lucky, Mr Osborne…_ or not so much.

"Perhaps you should have permitted the doctor to bandage your jaw in place, Dean," Castiel observes. "Then you might be able to keep your mouth shut for more than a few seconds at a time."

When Dean throws a sideways look at the angel, the baby blues are all innocence. And this is it, as much as he trusts the guy, hell, _likes_ him, sometimes Dean really doesn't know where he is with Castiel, whether the angel is jerking him down the road too, albeit a hell of a lot more stealthily than Sam and that black-eyed bitch of his. Even so, "I'm deaf on my right side," Dean complains at him.

Blinking slowly, Castiel says, "Perhaps you have earwax, Dean."

"Seriously, Cas?" Dean growls. "Earwax?"

Castiel inclines his head slightly. "This vessel had excessive earwax. Perhaps it bothers you too."

It's said with the detached sincerity Dean has become used to hearing from Castiel, said like he cares, and Dean thinks he really does. But then sometimes Castiel looks at him with his eyes narrowed in a way that's analytical, that speaks of a purely scientific interest in what makes Dean tick, and what purpose Dean fulfills in the grand scheme of life. Dean ponders it for a beautiful, peaceful moment that doesn't involve thinking about his demon king kid brother, or his one-way ticket back down under; thinks that if he were some endangered species about to be chowed down on by something with big teeth perched higher up the food chain, Castiel would swoop in and pluck him out of danger, not necessarily because endangered-species-Dean is cute and fluffy but because it would disrupt said food chain if he got eaten, like rats would multiply beyond control or something, or maybe—

"Rats would multiply beyond control?" Castiel inquires.

 _Dammit_. "Thinking out loud," Dean covers, and he flaps a hand. "Food chain, you know. Like if I wasn't in it, the…" He trails off as Castiel tilts his head even further to the side, quizzical. "Uh. Forget it."

Castiel returns to gazing ahead, but Dean can see the angel pout thoughtfully, so he pokes him with his elbow, demands, "What?"

Castiel glances back, and there is that slow blink again, almost insolent. "Perhaps you need to be syringed, Dean."

Dean blurts out a brittle laugh at that, muses that he's been hung, drawn, quartered, carved, split, chopped, shredded, sliced, bitten, diced, filleted, slit, chewed, flayed, slashed, minced, pared, eaten, stabbed, peeled, melted, pierced, burned, hacked, snipped, dissected, dismembered, beheaded. _Fuck it, may as well be syringed too_.

"Your brother destroyed Alastair," Castiel says then, because it turns out he wasn't sidetracked from the point one iota.

It sticks in Dean and twists and hurts just like the first time the angel said it, and he can feel sweat beading between his shoulders, feels his muscles knot tight as he thinks about what it could mean, _if you can't save your brother, Dean, you'll have to kill him_. The memory of his father whispering the words in his ear makes him lean forward and clutch at his belly, makes him want to holler out. He thinks he might even make a whining sound way back in his throat, just past the rusty barbed wire fence surrounding his larynx, but he chokes it back.

"Dean? Are you alright?"

The voice is compassionate, tender even, and for a wild, insane instant Dean considers turning to Castiel and asking for a hug. "It's not possible," he murmurs faintly. "He can't have done it. I don't want to hear this, Cas, please." But he knows it won't work, for all the angel's apparent sympathy, because he can feel the blue lasering into him even though he isn't looking; can feel Castiel's gaze heat the skin of his cheek like sunlight focused through a magnifying glass, and he squirms as the rays burn him to a crisp.

"You have to hear it. It means that things have escalated." Castiel pauses a beat, clears his throat. "We need to know what this means, and why it has come to be."

Dean lets out a weak, mirthless chuckle that scours his throat. "Sam's making lemonade out of lemons, Cas, didn't you know?"

There is that skeptical narrowing of the eyes again. "Why would your brother embrace this power to manufacture soft drinks?" Castiel offers after a moment's consideration.

"Christ, that's not… I mean he's making the best of it." Dean leans forward, rests his head in his hands, tries to think past the ache, and the exhaustion, and the despondency. "He's trying to make the best of it. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. He thinks he can do some good with it. And he did." Something occurs to him then and he gives Castiel a suspicious look of his own. "So how is it you couldn't take that bastard down even when he was hurting?"

Castiel is silent for a moment, and Dean sees what looks like real regret pass across his features. "Our losses weaken us," he says. "We're joined, and when even a single one of us is destroyed, our strength wanes. I've—"

"Like the Borg," Dean cuts in.

Castiel frowns. "The Borg?"

"Yeah, the Borg." Dean leans back again so they're shoulder to shoulder, reaches up and kneads the muscle where Alastair dislocated the left side again. "Cybernetically enhanced humanoid drones organized as a collective. With a hive mind."

Tapping his fingers on his thigh, Castiel says, "I'm not aware of the existence of—"

"Star Trek, Cas," Dean cuts in, rolling his eyes. "Remember what I told you? About Spock? The Borg are from Star Trek too."

"I see." Castiel nods slowly. "Hive mind… I prefer to think of it as a collective consciousness we can access at will."

"You would," Dean snorts.

Castiel doesn't seem to register the sarcasm, and his voice drops low and confidential. "But there are gaps now. I've lost many of my kin due to Uriel's treachery, and he spoke of others who had joined him in his cause. I'm not sure who I can trust, Dean."

There is irony in that, and Dean huffs on the realization. "Looks like both of us have been screwed over by our brother." He casts his eyes to where the angel is rubbing his jaw with his hand. It's a sign of anxiety, maybe the first one he has ever seen Castiel displaying, and it sends a little frisson of dread skipping through Dean, followed by the revelation that there is friendship here, affection and faith that snuck up on him when he wasn't looking. "You're being careful aren't you?" he says hoarsely.

"I'm trying," Castiel replies.

"Yeah, well, if you—"

"I was also distracted," Castiel races out then, and Dean thinks for a minute it's like the guy is blurting it out before he can think better and keep his trap shut.

"When I saw Alastair was free, and what he was doing, I was…" Castiel stops shakes his head, his expression pained. "It was distracting."

Dean smirks, and what the hell, he'll call it. "Expressing emotions there, Cas?"

The angel smiles, just barely, maybe even nudges Dean slightly in response. "My judgment was somewhat impaired, yes."

Dean finds he can see the humor in the understatement. "Somewhat? You were about as much use as a cat in a dogfight back there, Cas. Whatever you think of the powers, if Sam hadn't ganked Alastair, you'd be back upstairs, and I'd be… well. I guess I'd be back downstairs."

It slips out without him really meaning it to, but it's there now, and Dean waits, waits for the comfort, the assurance that he's up and out of there forever, that he's never going back no matter what, that _stopping_ it doesn't mean that, doesn't mean going back to what he was down there.

"The powers are demonic." Castiel's tone is level, utterly neutral. "And no good can come of that which was birthed from Hell."

Dean meets Castiel's stare, pours it all into his eyes, his fear, his need to know, holds onto that gaze. _Christ, please give me this, Cas. Please tell me I'm not going back, even if it's a lie. Lie to me_.

Nothing.

"That which was… _birthed_?" Dean finally scrapes out. "For Christ's sake, Cas. Enough with the sermon-on-the-mount crap, you sound like the Reverend Ike. Anyway…" He looks straight ahead again. "I was birthed from Hell. Thanks to you."

"That was different, Dean. _You_ are different."

And there it is again, that underlying note of _something_ , just like the first time the angel said it; something that's the total opposite of an abstract and purely scientific interest in what makes Dean tick, something that's like genuine respect, affection, something that's like _I would give anything not to have you do this_.

"That sounds like a doorway to doubt, Cas," Dean says tiredly. "Better watch that, huh?"

"Much good will come from you, Dean," Castiel continues. "I believe this."

There's such a vibe of religious fervor in the angel's voice that Dean looks back again, and he could swear Castiel is glowing at him. "Shut up," he wheezes faintly. "I'm supposed to be on voice rest."

He doesn't know how much time passes before Castiel speaks again. "Your brother doesn't appear to be coming."

Dean sniffs, clears his throat and regrets it because it feels like a dry shave with a cutthroat razor in there. "Do you know where he is? I mean – can you sense him? On your angel GPS doohickey?"

Castiel stares resolutely ahead. "No. He… conceals himself from time to time."

Subtext alert, and Dean goggles stupidly. "You mean he's cloaked? From you? Why would he do that? _How_ would he—" And he stops, just stops dead, because in the same second he utters the words he realizes that he knows why, and knows how. "Hexbag," he whispers, and his hand drifts to the one he wears himself, resting on his chest under the fabric of his tee. "The extra-crunchy kind."

Castiel doesn't confirm it, doesn't react at all.

After a beat, Dean says, "Don't tell him, Cas. Don't tell him I know he ganked Alastair."

  
Ruby-red racing through Sam's veins doesn't help him see any better at night, and he squints at the doorknob in the dark, has to bend down so he can slot in the key. It's one of those doors that's cunningly designed to be fractionally too large for the space it fills, so he has to lean his full weight against it to force it open.

Once inside the room, he flicks on the lamp, and almost jumps out of his skin at the sight of his brother curled up in the bed farthest from the door, apparently out for the count judging by the fact he slept through Sam's bitten-off curses and the crack and creak of jammed wood.

"How the hell…" he murmurs.

"Your brother will sleep for twelve hours," the voice says from behind him, and Sam whirls to see Castiel sitting stiffly upright at the table. "I expect him to wake at approximately eleven o'clock tomorrow morning," the angel continues as he stands, eyeing Sam expectantly.

"But what is he even doing here?" Sam demands once his heart stops pounding in his ears. "He's ill. They said they wouldn't be discharging him until the end of the week."

"He wished to leave," Castiel says dispassionately. "And since you appeared to be otherwise engaged, he thought it best that he come to you."

 _I'll bet he fucking did_ , Sam says to himself, and his sudden stab of irritation takes him by surprise, just like it always does these days. But he can't help it, can't help thinking that the research, the liaising with Ruby, this whole fucking quest to make Lilith eat it and never mind the seals, because life was a whole lot less complicated without seals and angels in the mix, would just be easier sometimes if his brother wasn't here. "I was busy," he snaps, and he realizes he's pacing, nervous, running his hands through his hair.

"He called you several times," Castiel replies.

The angel's voice has taken on a more intense note that's totally at odds with its previous languid indifference, and it has Sam stopping in his tracks and looking sharply in Castiel's direction, wondering, not for the first time, if the angel can read minds. And sure enough it's just like before, in the hospital room; there is a sudden, pent-up energy in the air, power radiating out from the angel, the power to _smite_ , and Sam shivers.

Almost as suddenly as Castiel switched it on, he switches it off again. "We waited until he became too exhausted and unwell to wait any longer. And then I brought him here so that he could sleep."

Sam fishes out his cell, scowling. "He doesn't sleep. Not any more. Not since you brought him back." Seven new messages. _Fuck_. "Did the doctor say—"

"Would you have preferred that I did not bring him back, Sam?"

Cut off mid-sentence, Sam finds he isn't exactly sure what Castiel means, and he chooses his words carefully. "If he feels well enough, if he wanted to leave… that's fine by me."

"I can assure you that your brother wanted to leave that place very much," Castiel says then, blinking slowly at Sam. "I believe he missed you, and wanted to be with you again."

 _And it's loaded_ , Sam thinks, just like always it's fucking loaded, there's always a hidden meaning, and he wants to say, _slow down, what is this, not bring him back from where, missed me where, missed me when? Missed me at the hospital? Missed me down there?_ "Or he wanted to keep an eye on me," he snarks instead.

Castiel just stares at Sam intently for a minute, before glancing over to Dean and back. "His sleep will be dreamless," he says softly, and his eyes are knowing. "I gave him the magic finger."

Sam snorts out a laugh despite himself. "Can you show me that trick? I've had enough of the damn dreams myself." And it comes out wrong, it comes out spiteful and harsh, because what Sam means, knows he means, thinks he means, _hopes_ he means, is that he can't bear Dean's suffering; his stifled cries of pain that sometimes become frenzied screams, his frantic, sobbed-out exorcisms, his whispered pleas for help, for deliverance from evil, his huge shocked eyes in the dark when he jack-knifes awake, his constant exhaustion, and the ever-present bottle on the nightstand. "Can't you take it all away?" he snaps. "His memories? Can't you just take it all away, like the scars, so he can go on? So he can rest? So _I_ can rest? I'm tired too. The dreams wake me too."

The blue gaze is as remorseless as ever. "Are you familiar with the Greek poet Aeschylus, Sam?" Castiel queries, and it's a tangent that has Sam teetering on his back foot for a second before the angel continues.

"Even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God." He glances over to Dean again. "Wisdom comes through suffering, Sam," he says quietly, and his voice is heavy and dark with regret, with care. "God commands that your brother remembers what he endured, and what he became. And what he did."

"But why?" Sam says desperately. "You're saying God wants this, wants Dean to suffer? How can that be right, how can he deserve this? He doesn't deserve it. You know he doesn't." On impulse he steps forward, puts his hands on the angel's shoulders, leans down so their eyes are level. "Cas, you know he doesn't."

Castiel doesn't flinch or look away. "All will become clear, Sam," he says simply, tolerantly. "But tonight… tonight your brother will not dream. Tonight he will be at peace."

Sam lifts his hands, lets them flop by his sides, steps back. "One night isn't enough," he says sourly. "And you know something. What do you know? Is it something to do with the reason you brought him back? Uriel said you raised him from Hell for your own purposes… does he know something? Something you need? Something he found out in the pit? Is that why you can't take away his memories?"

Castiel raises an eyebrow and Sam suddenly thinks he's getting a whole lot more interaction with the angel than he ever has, he's getting category-Dean interaction, and it occurs to him that he's not sure if that's a comfort or not.

"Yes," the angel says. "Yes, yes, no. And yes."

It's surprisingly inelegant, effectively baffling, not what Sam is used to from Castiel, and he backtracks hastily through his babbled out questions, can barely remember what he asked. "What… does that _mean_?" he asks helplessly.

"It's not for me to say. You must ask your brother."

And just like that Castiel is gone, in a caress of displaced air.

"Christ. I wish you wouldn't fucking do that," Sam breathes.

He walks to his bed, sprawls across it, and stares at the stained ceiling for a few seconds before rolling onto his side and examining his brother. Dean's features are slack, his lips slightly parted, he's dead to the world, and _sightless eyes staring up, blood spattered face, warm but cooling rapidly, Dean, no, don't go, and Sam's hands and knees are slithering in blood pools, who knew there was so much in a body, his brother's life spilled and wasted, as he lifts him up, presses him to his chest and howls out his loss, and_ Sam explodes off the bed, crashes into the bathroom, retches into the toilet, practically turns himself inside out as he regurgitates kung pao shrimp and special fried rice so violently his eyes leak tears with the force of it.

When nothing is left, he spits bile, collapses on his butt beside the can, swiping his mouth across with his sleeve. He heaves in shuddering breaths, pulls his knees up, and the denim of his jeans is still stained, darker patches where the fabric soaked up his brother's blood. Sam rests his brow right there and hugs himself as he weeps. And in his head a voice asks him if he's ever thought of asking Castiel to take away that memory, rewind him back to some time in his past when he was happy, some time when a monster hunt was as bad as it ever got, maybe some time when they were coasting along the highway in between fuglies, with the windows open and Dean's cock rock blasting from the dash, and his brother singing along and alternately drumming and playing air guitar on the steering wheel.

Some time _before_.

And then the other voice chips in and tells him that it's the memory of New Harmony that feeds that black, heinous beast inside him, the beast that will make him strong enough to defend, protect, shield his brother from all-comers.

  
She always gets saddled with the relatives and Coop tells her it's because she has kind eyes, even though Hudak knows damn well they aren't that warm blue at all, more an ice-chip gray. And that means she knows damn well they send her to administer the Kleenex and sympathy because she's a woman, and they think she does emotion better.

The wife is young, mid-twenties, anxious, jumpy as a frog caught outdoors in a thunderstorm, eyes huge and scared.

"So, Mrs Garner…" Hudak glances down at the scribbled notes. "You say your husband didn't come home last night and that he doesn't make a habit of staying out since—"

"Since we had the baby," the woman says, and her voice is high and cracked. "He's three months. Kevin junior… he's a good baby, he even started sleeping through, and it's been a lot easier since… since…" She pauses, starts chewing her thumbnail. "I heard on the news that they found another body," she whispers.

"We haven't identified the body yet, Mrs Garner," Hudak says softly, and maybe she can be good at this after all. "Maybe Kevin's doing that thing new dads do. You know… sometimes they need to let off steam." Or maybe not that good at it, actually. _What the fuck do new fathers do?_ she muses briefly. What is that thing they do where they lay it all on the line for a night with a hooker, because their wife is strung out caring for the baby and wants to sleep instead of—

"He wouldn't do that," the woman cries. "He wouldn't be thinking he needed to do that. He isn't like that…" She fumbles in her purse, pulls out a picture. "Here," she says. "Please look at this, please tell me. Tell me if that's the man you found."

Hudak sighs. "Mrs Garner," she says gently, as she takes the picture, "the body we found, it was… it was damaged. We'd need your…" She pauses briefly, glances down at the photograph out of courtesy really, and _Jesus_. She has to swallow before she continues, faintly now. "…Husband's dental records." She looks up, blinks hard, clears her throat. "Can you give us a number for your dentist? And can I keep this picture? Just in case?"

By some gargantuan effort, she manages to keep it together long enough to show the woman out, and then she has to lean up against the wall because her legs are shaking so much, and as she waits for the tremors to settle she looks long and hard at the picture.

"Dean," she breathes. "Dean Winchester."


	3. Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid

Dean wakes up with his face mashed into the pillow, and his nose aches from the pressure. He groans, surfaces blearily. "Dammit, Cas," he grouses. "Gave me the finger. Fuckin' dick."

He stretches, bites off a yelp, feels the bare skin of his legs and back against the sheets. He can feel someone watching him, raises his groggy head to see his brother's dark eyes regarding him from the other bed. Sam's brow is creased in concern and he's doing the puppy dog eyes, and it makes Dean chafe because his brother's a damned convincing actor, _give him a fuckin' Oscar, right the fuck now_.

"Did you strip me?" he grumbles, because he sleeps fully clothed since Hell, doesn't want his skin on display, wants it safely covered, protected from sharp claws, and jagged teeth; and he wants to be ready, ready to run when he hears the hounds coming to reclaim him. He damn well isn't going to get caught and ripped asunder again because he wasted two minutes of his head start getting dressed.

"Nope," Sam replies.

"Fucktard, Cas." Dean sniffs, looks at the nightstand. "Coffee. Thank God." He eases himself over onto his back, and pushes up to his elbows, groans again. "Dean Winchester. Hunter. A man barely alive. We can't rebuild him." He reaches for the cup, gulps a mouthful of the brown liquid and scowls. "Dude. It's not even warm."

Sam grimaces. "Yeah, sorry. The doc said nothing hot."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, whatthefuckever." He scratches his head. "Where the hell were you, anyway?" he croaks then. "I left ten messages. I needed a ride."

One of Sam's eyebrows arches higher. "You left seven messages actually."

It's snippish, sets low-level annoyance seething inside Dean. "Meaning what?" he snipes back. "That ignoring my seven messages is okay?"

Sam has the balls to stare it out with him. "I was doing some research," he says, more reasonably. "At the library. The wireless connection wasn't working here. I had to switch off my phone there." He sighs. "What are you even doing here, Dean? You're not up to it, and you look as sick as a sick thing. They said they wanted you to stay in until the weekend at least."

"It was boring there. And I was lonely." Dean looks pointedly at Sam, but his brother's eyes are fixed to his laptop screen now, and he's typing industriously. "I see the wireless connection is working again," Dean mutters. "That's real convenient."

And maybe Sam does get the point because his answer is terse. "How could you have been lonely? Cas was there pretty much all the damn time."

"Well who knows, perhaps he thought I needed protecting," Dean retorts defensively. "The nurses took the hexbag off me. You kept disappearing, and you didn't ward the room."

Sam stiffens, looks up again, and now his eyes have clouded over. "He makes me tense."

It's all Dean can do to stop himself from huffing out in derision. _Fuckin' liar_ , he thinks, and amazes himself with the speed at which his seething low-level annoyance suddenly shoots right up the Richter scale to hit ferocious anger. _I know what you were doing and who you were doing it with. Fuckin' liar, sneaking around behind my back_. "You could try being grateful," he snaps, and his voice is splintered and sharp against the damage inside his throat. "Grateful for what he's done for you."

Sam glances over again, a searching look, and he frowns. "What has he ever done for me?"

 _Cas gave me back to you, you ungrateful fuckin' prick_ , Dean rages inwardly. _And you left me there in that motel room on the very first night, and I know damn well you went to get it on with your demon fuck-buddy when you knew something was chasing me_. It rants through his mind but he doesn't react, doesn't flinch, even though pain blooms sudden and raw in his chest. He doesn't scream it out even though he really wants to, even though his brother's denseness feels like Alastair's fingers digging into his neck. "What he's done for us then," he mutters instead, and he reaches up and rubs at his brow.

"What has he done for us except cause a whole lot of trouble, Dean?" Sam says, and he seems genuinely puzzled. "He comes at us with all this seal crap, expects us to fight Lilith without telling us how, beams you away when you aren't up to it, and—"

"Thanks for the coffee," Dean husks out.

The conversation is over, drowned at birth in fact, and the abrupt silence that follows is so thick Dean fancies he could cut it into chunks and eat it. He can't talk to his brother any more, even though he wants to, wants to pour it all out, what he saw, what they did, how it felt. What _he_ did. _You're holding me back_ , Sam had said. _You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself… whining about all the souls you tortured in Hell_. He set the Apocalypse in motion, and even if Castiel's faith in him glows softly out of the dude's eyes every time Dean meets his gaze, he doesn't think he can fix it. And it's suddenly overwhelming, but Dean can't stomach how Sam will look at him when he finds out, so he presses the heel of his hand up to his eyes, lets out an awful, strangled sound he knows is despair.

"Dean."

It's gentle, and Dean grips the arm that wraps around him, leans into the warmth for a moment. "Hurts," he chokes out, and his voice is thick, sounds, _feels_ as if blood is being stirred into it. He pulls back, squeezes a hand in between and pushes his brother away. "My throat hurts," he wheezes, even though it's not his throat that hurts at all.

Sam sits back, nods slowly, and maybe there's something in his eyes, something like disappointment. "I'll get you some aspirin," he says. "Soft foods. Soup. Ice cream." He sighs heavily, and his voice goes quiet, gentle. "Dean. I really wish you'd talk to me. I won't… it won't be like before. I won't let you down."

Dean rearranges himself on the pillows, stares up at the ceiling, and thinks about it, thinks about taking the risk, thinks about letting it pour out, his sick fear, his despair, his doubt, his guilt. He thinks about how it might feel to have his brother grind it into the cheap nylon carpet with his boot and spit on it just to be sure. He thinks about how easy it would be to pour it all out to Castiel, who stares at him like he matters, who understands without judging, without criticizing, because Castiel saw him at his worst and thought he deserved to be saved.

"I'm on voice rest," he whispers.

  
Coop's desk is strewn with folders and files and it takes Hudak a few minutes to ferret through the mess, locate the batch she needs and spread them all out in front of her. And it's looking her right in the face, and how the fuck could they have missed it?

She closes her eyes, breathes in, blows out, counts to ten, stands and looks down at them all. Five faces plus the doppelganger in her hand, some smiling, some serious, all thirtyish, brown hair of varying lengths, full lips, girlishly pretty. And now she's searching for the likeness it stands out like a wicked fairy at a christening, and how is it that she overlooked the five slightly different versions of Dean Winchester staring back at her? She shakes her head. "I don't believe it," she murmurs. "I don't fucking believe it. What the hell is this…?"

She's oblivious to the sound behind her until a voice sounds right in her ear, and she jumps.

"What the hell is what, Katie?"

"They all look alike."

She blurts it out even though she knows damn well Coop will follow the lead all the way – not that it matters any more, because even if the trail leads to Dean Winchester, the long arm of the law can't reach that far. She puts the picture of Kevin Garner, _poor bastard_ , down beside the others. "The wife brought his picture with her. Look."

Coop stands beside her, cocks his head as he considers. "Yeah," he says, and his voice rises slightly. "You're right. Hell's bells, Katie, you're right, they could be… whatever it is when there's six… sixtables?" He starts gathering up the files, an untidy pile. "How the hell did we miss this?" he mutters. "I'm going to run these pictures through the FBI database for anyone similar… Katie, put a request out for any John Does who fit this profile. If we can match the victims to someone it could give us a lead as to who this nutjob thinks he's killing, and maybe we can backtrack straight to him."

"It's a longshot," Hudak says weakly as he strides out of the office.

"It's good old-fashioned detective work," he calls back.

"It's pointless," she murmurs. "If I'm right, the guy he thinks he's killing is already dead."

She pulls out her chair, sits, taps her fingers on the desk for a minute or two as she thinks. She hasn't spoken to either of them in six months, couldn't bring herself to return Bobby's message. _It went down Kathleen. I thought you should know_ , words spoken in a voice dazed and wretched with grief, with horror, and then cut off because there was nothing left to say. She erased the voicemail then and there, blocked out what it meant, went on with her life, maybe drank a little too much a few times somewhere in the mix.

Hudak reaches behind her to her coat, dips a hand in the pocket, retrieves her cell, scrolls through the list, sends, and braces herself.

 _This number is no longer in service or has been disconnected_.

"Dammit, Sam," she breathes out.

Next one down then, and she frowns. "Oh come on, Bobby. Not you too."

Singer Salvage it is then, and she roots the grubby business card out of her wallet, bides her time as it rings, rings, rings some more, finally picks up. _Answerphone, dammit_. "Bobby, hey. It's Kathleen, Kathleen Hudak, out of Hibbing. It's been a while, I guess." She takes a deep breath. "Listen… I have this case, it's – odd. Murders, young men. Mutilated, pretty nasty, the heart is missing. Could be a werewolf, I think. And there's something else. Look. There's no easy way to say this. But they all really strongly resemble—crap."

Cut off, and she rolls her eyes as she redials. And, _what are the fucking odds?_ she thinks, as it rings, rings, rings and no pickup. "Christ almighty," she snaps. "That's fucking typical."

  
It's a couple of hours before Dean starts to shift restlessly in the bed, and Sam chugs water into one of the glasses in the bathroom, tears open a sachet of salt pilfered from the local burger joint, and tips the white crystals in before setting it down on the nightstand.

He points to it when Dean finally chokes out and surges up onto his elbows. "Salt water to gargle. It should help with the swelling and inflammation in your throat."

Dean grunts, rubs his eyes, picks crust off his eyelashes, flicks it away and then scratches his armpit before standing up and lurching to the bathroom, where he pisses like a racehorse for several minutes. Once done, he makes a point of dressing, maneuvering his bruised torso into his tee and pulling Sam's own fleece hoodie over it with some difficulty and many harsh exhales, his only response to Sam's offer of help a look that drips scorn as he tugs the hood up over his head before crawling back under the covers. From there, he throws Sam morose, accusing glances that set his nerves on edge because he knows Dean trusts him about as far as he could spit a horse these days, _work with Ruby or don't, I don't really give a rat's ass_.

The silence is damned awkward, so Sam breaks it with the only question he can think up. "You never told me what happened with Alastair. Apart from the obvious, I mean." It's clumsy, and that isn't lost on his brother, whose jaw clenches.

"The obvious being that I fucked it up and the sonofabitch was better, faster, stronger than before," Dean croaks. "The six million dollar demon."

Sam chews his lip for a minute. "You didn't fuck it up," he says softly. "Cas said it was a double-cross. Uriel set you up. It wasn't anything you did, Dean."

Dean snorts. "More like what I didn't do."

He's feeling his way in this conversation, Sam knows, and he wishes he knew if Castiel raised the alarm with Dean, wonders how much he can fish without incriminating himself. "Which is what exactly?"

His brother clears his throat, faintly, modestly, oh so carefully, and he winces almost imperceptibly. Sam leans across the table for the meds, shakes out a couple of pills, crosses and sits on the other bed, opposite Dean.

"If that's Vicodin I don't—"

"It's just aspirin, Dean," Sam reassures. "Maybe you should try gargling with it too. It's an anti-inflammatory."

"House fuckin' MD," Dean grouses, but he gulps down the pills, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "I didn't get what they needed. Alastair must've had a ton of intel on Lilith. Fuck-all use it is to us now Cas had to gank him."

Sam thinks, _hopes_ he disguises his start of surprise. "Cas. Yeah. Lucky he was there, I guess." He gets up abruptly, turns and walks back to his laptop, doesn't want to look at his brother while he lies, doesn't like the feeling that he's this accustomed to doing it, this poised in the act, that he's even remotely articulate as the deceit slinks and slithers and snakes past his lips. He steers away from it as best he can. "But Cas said Uriel 'fessed up to the angel killing. That's what they really needed to know, isn't it?"

He glances back over his shoulder and Dean is staring into space, his eyes vacant now, lost in some memory or dream. Or waking nightmare, maybe, and the thought makes Sam shiver. "Seems there's some sort of angel fifth column then," he offers.

His brother looks slowly over, drifts back. "Angel fifth… _huh_?"

"Angel fifth column," Sam repeats. "Rebellion. Angels for Lucifer. Uriel and his buddies."

Dean glowers. "Yeah. It's like the fuckin' X Files."

Sam cocks his head at the detour. "Like the X Files?"

"You know. Started out real simple, us versus little green men. And then, Jesus – colonists, alien bounty hunters, black fuckin' oil, rebels, super soldiers. No clue who was doing what or running the show." Dean's voice starts out as gravel, passes through glass, then shell, until it finally achieves a papery rustle. "It makes it harder… harder to know what to do, how to fight this battle."

He's watching Sam as he speaks, and for a split second Sam could swear the look is as suspicious as Castiel's was. It unsettles him, and he damn well changes the subject. "You're supposed to be on voice rest," he says. "And we need to eat. What'll it be? There's an Olive Garden a couple of miles back up the highway."

"Burger," Dean mutters.

All at once he's back to morose, sullen, and it's frustrating, infuriating even, because Sam is getting this sense that his brother is hiding something. He briefly comforts himself with the possibility that it might be Dean coming round to the fact that he isn't as special as Castiel told him, that maybe he's realizing that Sam is the big gun in this war, and that he was wrong about the powers. It gives him a feeling of guilty satisfaction he doesn't want to admit to, and he diverts back on topic. "The doc said it had to be soft foods."

"Pizza," Dean grunts.

"Soft foods, Dean."

"Burrito."

"That's not even Italian," Sam says, exasperated now. "And it's too hot, it'll hurt you inside when you swallow it. Have soup. Or lasagne. Something like that."

Dean sits up again, sweaty, cheeks flushed. "If you bring me slop, asshat, you'll be wearing it," he husks out. "I swear to God."

Sam sighs. "Dean, for crying out loud. You're sweltering under there. At least leave the hood down."

His brother gives him a fixed, insolent stare, goading, deliberately reaches for the bottle of Jack on his nightstand, unscrews it and chugs a good mouthful, wipes his mouth. "I'm full," he sneers. "In fact, I couldn't drink another bite."

And it just isn't in Sam to protest as Dean smirks just barely, his eyes pink and watering from the burn of the whiskey, daring a response. "Pissy bastard," he finally dredges up, as he reaches for his jacket, slamming the motel room door as he leaves.

When he gets back Dean is gone and there's a note on the table.

 _Bar. Across the road. Pool_.

And Sam sits down and eats his chicken parmagiana, feeling something that might be weary anger or might be relief, he doesn't know any more.

  
They hit the alley from different ends, go through the motions, and the women glare hostility through panda-rimmed eyes. Their faces are grim, pasty, chapped and pinched with cold, and Hudak hugs her sheepskin around her and wonders how they hell they do it, stand out here in six-inch heels and mini skirts so short she can see five o'clock shadow at the tops of their thighs, variously smoking and chewing gum while yards of exposed flesh turns blue and pimply and shivers in the freezing air.

"Yeah, I saw that guy. Couple nights ago."

She's already turning to leave, already slipping the photograph back in her coat pocket, mechanical because she's on autopilot, but she swivels back to stare at the woman.

"What's he done then, that guy? Is he the one who got himself killed across there?"

Her eyes are the hooker-patented twin miracles of mascara, lashes spiky and rigid, as if a couple of miniature crows crashed into her face and stuck there. She's staring out from under suspiciously red hair, her gaze as empty as a shark's. She's skinny. And she's young. Too young.

"How old are you?" Hudak asks, and she wonders if she sounds like a mother, maybe like her own mother, God forbid.

"Twenty-one," the girl snaps back warily. "I got ID."

 _Right, and that's legal_ , Hudak thinks as she cocks her head. "What's your name?"

The girl blinks. "Heavenly Desire."

Hudak manages to turn her snort into a polite cough. "Heavenly Desire. Okay. Well, Ms… uh, Desire, you say you saw this—"

"That's my professional name," the kid says suddenly, and she leans in confidentially. "My real name is Mel." And then she draws herself up as much as any teenage whore can. "But you can call me Ms Desire."

Nodding slowly, Hudak smiles. "Ms Desire. Okay. Got it. So you saw this man – when was that?"

"Couple of nights ago," the kid says. "He was hovering up around the top of the alleyway, for a few nights actually. Seemed real shy… not the usual type we get coming to visit us down here." She grimaces. "And Monday night I thought he might be biting, and I walked up there and stuck my ass out at him, but turns out the guy's in a dude mood."

Hudak raises an eyebrow. "Dude mood?"

"Yeah," the girl replies, regretful. "Some guy hustled him instead. Who'd have thunk, huh? Makin' eyes at us when he swung the other way. Loser." Her voice takes on a note of spiteful malice. "Bet he wished he picked me now, huh?"

Hudak thinks of the man's wife, his child, fatherless now. Stupid, stupid man, taking a stupid, stupid risk when the newspapers have been full of lurid accounts of the grisly remains of the other five stupid, stupid men. "He had a child," she snaps out tartly. "A newborn."

The girl stares at her, shrugs. "Tough breaks," she says. "It ain't my fault."

Hudak raises a hand, waves Coop over. "Can you describe the man you saw him with? Is he a regular?"

"Big guy, real big. Tall and wide."

Coop looms up, blowing on his fingers, and Hudak gestures at the girl. "Ms Desire here says another man picked up the victim just over there on the night he disappeared."

"Up there at the top of the alley?" Coop says.

"Yeah," the girl says. "Right there. Up at the top. I never saw him before though."

"I told you it was a guy doing this," Coop smirks.

Hudak rolls her eyes at him, turns her attention back to the girl. "Ms Desire, would you mind coming to the station house to look at some mugshots?" she says smoothly, and all at once the kid's eyes are shuttered and she's backing away.

"I didn't see him up close."

"But you said you walked right up there," Hudak reminds her. "To shake your ass, I believe."

The girl's lips purse thin and annoyed. "It was dark, I—"

"You said he was at the top of the alley," Coop cuts in. "There's a streetlamp right there."

Hudak waves the picture again. "If you recognize this guy, then you might recognize the other one. You're coming in."

She shepherds the girl ahead of them towards her car, fishing in her pocket as they walk. Nothing, where there should be something, and, "Dammit," she cracks out sharply, and she glances over her shoulder, sees that the alleyway is empty now. "I think one of those damn hookers lifted my cell."

Heavenly Desire raises her hands, wiggles her fingers, chewed fingernails painted purple. "Not guilty," she bleats. "You can even search me, lady."

  
The bar is a dive bar, cigarette smoke like dry ice, sawdust on the floor soaking up vomit or blood or worse. Dean holds court at the pool table, preening, strutting as best he can, swinging his hips in a charged come-get-me at anyone who looks in his direction, male or female. He smacks the balls home with controlled aggression, pocketing twenty after twenty, the warm buzz of alcohol deadening his senses and the dull ache in his muscles and bones. He's restless, every fiber of his being sparking with the kind of adrenaline rush that means either a fight or a fuck, and when he catches some forgettable blonde's eye, she gives him a look he could pour on a waffle and motions to the exit sign.

He feels an answering twitch in his pants and he smiles, feral, predatory, downs what's left of his shot, and follows her. He's already half-hard.

It's dark in the service alley, raining, and she curses at the weather as Dean maneuvers her up against the wall. He swallows down her expletives and she tastes of stale beer, and cigarettes, and bar snacks. She sucks on his tongue as she wraps her legs around his hips, asks him his name, and he tells her it's Gabe, because, _hell_ , might as well be that fuckin' loser for the night.

It's rough, perfunctory, less than two minutes of slamming her up against the concrete even though it sends pain rippling through Dean's ribs, his jeans and shorts puddled around his ankles and his bare ass getting soaked by the rain, her tongue and her breathy cries in his ear, one more meaningless screw to get it out of his system even though he knows it won't work. Somewhere at the back of his mind he wonders if Castiel is watching from on high, judging him for this, but he doesn't care because he feels raw, cut open, feels like the man he was is bleeding out of him.

She flops on his shoulder as he jerks inside and finishes and he has to shake her off, prop her against the wall. As he does, he feels eyes on him, and he spins as he pulls his jeans up and buttons them. His brother is hovering at the top of the alley, watching, and Dean can feel the bitchface even at fifteen yards.

The blonde lurches in to plant one on him, lips open, tongue thrashing like an electric eel, and Dean sidesteps her adroitly, tugs the roll of bills out of his pocket, peels off a couple or three. "Buy yourself an ice cream," he rasps, closing her fingers around it, and she grins and slurs something incoherent as he walks away.

He strolls up to his brother, all smug innocence, and Sam's eyes are stone cold.

"I came looking for you. Bobby called. You're drunk."

"So I see," Dean drawls. "Did he? And yep, that I am. But not that drunk."

"This isn't you, Dean," Sam mutters.

"Actually, Sammy, it's the new, improved me," Dean declares as he ranges ahead. "You get a kick out of it, little bro? Watching? Was it a turn-on?"

Sam grabs his arm, swings him round. "Picking up women and screwing them in alleyways behind bars?" he snaps. "Drinking like you did after Bender? It nearly killed you that time."

Dean shrugs Sam off, keeps walking.

"Did you use anything?"

It's so utterly mundane, banal, _normal_ , that Dean has to stop and turn around. "Did I _use_ anything?" he echoes his brother, and he can't help the derision, thinks it's damn well necessary, in fact. "I think in the circumstances the clap is the least of my worries. And even if I do start scratching, my guardian angel can just kiss it better for me."

"There are worse things than the clap," Sam tells him.

It's so _fuckin' prim_ that Dean feels like handing out a dry slap. "Say ahhh," he replies, leaning forward. "I'd just like to check if I can see that stick up your ass."

"All I'm saying is that she could have anything, you're taking chances and—"

"Yeah, Sammy, there are worse things than the clap," Dean says, and he plasters a wide, solid smile on his face. "Like fuckin' Armageddon, for example." He snorts. "Got your priorities ass over tip as usual."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam demands.

There's mixed annoyance, suspicion and worry in there, and Dean smirks back in return. "At least she was human."

Sam throws up his hands in frustration. "Dean, for God's sake. That was – what's happened to you?"

His voice is incredulous, he's shaking his head, and the question hangs in the air between them for a minute of quiet. And it's a silence formed by things unsaid that Dean wants, _needs_ to say, and he suddenly finds himself right up in Sam's face.

"You happened to me," he hisses. "You turned your back on that asshat in Cold Oak. What the fuck was that? You turned your back. It was a stupid thing to do, Sam. And I went to Hell for it."


	4. An Axe to Break the Ice

Dean is staring at Sam, his eyes bloodshot and shiny, and Sam knows his brother is hammered, knows it because Dean is only that malicious, that brutally honest, when he's feeling no pain. But even if he is secure in the knowledge Dean never would have said it if he was sober, it spikes right through him because it suddenly occurs to him that his brother must have felt this way since that night in Cold Oak, even though Sam knows damn well he has never uttered one word about his guilt, never uttered it for the simple reason that he can't bear the thought that he might see affirmation in Dean's eyes.

"Yeah…" Dean brother is curling his lips now, in a mean, twisted smile that looks more like he's baring his teeth. "Never thought of that, did you? You let your fuckin' guard down and I paid the price. _Again_."

That cuts through to the quick, and Sam feels confused, flustered. "Again?" he says. "Again? What do you mean by that?"

"Bender," his brother growls viciously, and he lifts a shaking hand to his brow, rubs it hard. "You let your guard down with Bender and it was me who ended up… _Jesus_. And you let it down with that fuckin' loser, Jake Talley. You climbed right up to the moral high ground, didn't you, instead of killing the sonofabitch when you had the chance."

Sam flounders for a second, stutters helplessly. "N-no. Dean. Y-you. You don't understand. I couldn't. I couldn't kill him—"

"Couldn't kill him?" Dean cuts in, his eyes gone narrow and mean. "Well Sammy, you made a pretty good job of killing him at the devil's gate. Emptied a full clip into him if memory serves, and it looked like you got a hell of a kick out of it." He shakes his head, drops his gaze for a second. "Too late for me."

Sam feels breathless, tight in his chest, shame mixed with desperation as he suddenly recalls the demon, its yellow eyes malign and its grin feral. "No, Dean," he protests. "No. Don't you see, I couldn't, because that was what Yellow Eyes wanted, he wanted me to do that, he wanted me—"

"He wanted _me_ ," Dean hollers back, a hoarse, grating rasp, while his finger stabs at the air, and Sam wants to tell him to calm down, but it has gone beyond that so swiftly he's at a loss, and now Dean is an arm-waving fury right up in Sam's face, yelling out the words so violently Sam can hear his voice fracture and feel spittle showering his skin.

"He wanted _me_ , you fuckin' idiot. _Me_. Not you. You walked right into the trap and led me by the fuckin' nose. And then you, you… fuckin' _wasted_ me."

With that, Dean lets rip a right hook that takes Sam unawares, slamming into the side of his face and sending him reeling. The blow is followed by an uppercut to the ribs that lifts him half a foot off the ground before landing him on his butt in the mud. He shakes his head, momentarily dazed by flashing lights, before pushing slowly up onto his feet, rubbing at his ribcage and trying to swallow down his sudden urge to puke.

"I don't want to fight you, Dean," he says helplessly, but his brother is circling, prowling, eyes suddenly brilliant with rage, hackles raised, he has Sam in his sights, is taking the measure of him. He barrels right into Sam again and Sam holds up his arms, defends himself as best he can while Dean forces him back up against the wall.

"Fuckin' buzzkill," Dean shouts, his voice raw. "Fight back, you little shit."

His fists are thudding into Sam, but he's out of control, irrational, the attack lacking its customary finesse and choreographed grace. It's sloppy, in fact, like Dean's heart really isn't in it despite his taunts, like he isn't able for it, like he isn't the man he was. And Sam finally reaches out, grabs Dean's hand mid-punch, spins him and twists his arm up behind him before shoving him face-first into the wall, hoping to God it isn't the shoulder Alastair dislocated again.

"Dean," he hisses, right in his brother's ear. "Stop this. I am not going to fight you. I won't do it."

He has sparred with Dean and seen him in action enough times to know he fights dirty when he's up against losing odds, but even so he doesn't expect the back of his brother's skull to slam into his face quite so viciously. Agony flares whitely, and it poleaxes Sam, leaving him flat on his back in puddles of rain, blind with tears. He reaches up a hand and feels blood on his nose, can feel it flooding his mouth too, and he tastes copper and iron.

And then Dean is reaching down, hauling Sam up by a handful of his jacket. His features are drawn and grim, but he can't hide the wince of discomfort, and all Sam can see is the pain, the bruises, eyes flat and dead now, and God help him, he doesn't want to hurt his brother but this is getting to the point where he's going to have to defend himself and Dean is in no shape for that after Alastair. Or maybe there's another way, and Sam reaches for it, finds himself willing Dean backwards, just one tiny _nudge_ , an Andy Gallagher nudge when he needs it most, minimal, strategic, and controlled, because he's practiced the big moves enough with Ruby to know that he could notch it right up to hurling his brother against a handy gravestone or tree if he wanted to, just like Yellow Eyes did that night in Wyoming, just like Alastair did in Greybull.

"Dean," he says, _nudging_ while his brother pulls his fist back again. "Please, Dean, I don't want to hurt you, I don't want to—"

"Hurt me? Because you can? Because I'm _weak_?"

It's choked out, and Dean lets go, steps back, jerky and robotic, and Sam can feel the thrill of power spark all colorful and warm inside him, the _nudge_. He focuses on that, doesn't want to think about what his brother just said, doesn't want to think about that fucking siren any more than he has to, wants to think it was the nudge that stopped this and not Dean's memory of what he said back in Bedford, even as his mind is calmly denying that he just gave his brother the demon whammy.

Dean is staring at Sam with a foggy, bewildered expression, like he might not even realize what just happened. And his voice quiets right down to so intensely sad and heartfelt that it makes Sam feel sick to his stomach, and suddenly, appallingly, his brother is crying, _maybe he was crying all the time and I just didn't notice_ , and his shoulders are sagging, his knees buckling so that he sits down heavily.

The torrent of bile is over as abruptly as it began, reduced now to whispering. "What I went through for you. You'll never. Never, I can never… And you wasted it. You wasted _me_. You did that, Sam. You still did that, that thing you did. That thing you _do_. That I asked you not to. My dying fuckin' wish, you called it. So. It was for nothing, what I did, what happened to me there. All for nothing."

Sam finds he's rubbing at his own eyes as Dean sits there, motionless, not even reaching up to stall the tears dripping off his chin. He doesn't know what to say, only knows that in spite of his brother's drunkenness and the likelihood Dean might not even remember most of what he's just said, this is some sort of turning point, fork in the road, _whatever_. And the thought Dean might think that he spat in the face of his sacrifice does awful, tearing, ripping, grinding things to Sam's insides, and he knows damn well he has to get the situation back under control right the fuck now.

He wipes his nose and lip, sees a dark smear of blood glistening on the back of his hand, _blood on my hands_ , and he starts talking. "Did you know that blood makes up seven percent of the human body?" he asks softly. "That we have about five quarts inside us on average, and that our hearts create enough pressure as they pump to squirt blood ten feet away? It's called arterial spray. I know that because I saw it happen, to you, Dean." He sees it now, again, his brother fighting, screaming, dying in a suburban newbuild while he watched, helpless, and he clenches his fists. "So I know it's true. Five quarts of blood, spraying ten feet away, more even. And I heard it happen too, heard you scream my name and beg for your life."

Dean is looking up at Sam, eyes dull and jaded now, old beyond their years, shattered, and Sam bends at the knees, settles down on his own backside on the ground, finds he's recalling another memory now, of another alleyway where he gathered up the broken pieces of his brother and tried to fit them back together as best he could. "It was so quiet afterwards. Like the world stopped. And I knelt down in your blood. There were puddles of it." He pauses, shifts his gaze from his brother's face to the ground next to him, reaches down and touches his fingertips to the surface of a rainwater pool. "Puddles like this, and it dripped from my fingers and it got under my nails, got right into the skin there. And my knees, they skidded in it. It was slippery. It soaked into my jeans and I didn't wash them for weeks afterwards. It was like those Elvis concerts where he'd wipe his sweat off on scarves and hand them out to the women and they never washed it off. Never."

Dean is still watching him, and he seems a tad more lucid now, but tears are still trailing down his cheeks.

"I did wash them eventually," Sam whispers. "Had to really, because it got all hard where the blood soaked in so they weren't all that comfortable to wear. And Bobby didn't like seeing them." He shivers. "There was so much blood, Dean. The floor in that room, it was wooden. So all that blood just pooled there, and soaked into my jeans while I held you and asked you not to go." _Sightless eyes_ , he remembers. "You looked right at me, and I thought you were going to laugh and say you fooled me good. But you never did. And after a while, Bobby came and lifted Ruby, or whoever she was, up, and took her out to the car. And then he came back and lifted you up and took you out to the car. And then he came back again and sat me down, poured me a drink, and he never said a word, Dean. Nothing. And then the woman, that kid's mom… you remember her?"

It's barely perceptible, but Dean nods.

"She came in. I guess she was in shock, maybe she saw you and Bobby or something. And she started yelling about, about th-the m-mess." Sam is stammering now, has to breathe deep. "The m-mess. And she went out and came back in and she had a mop and a bucket of water. It stank of bleach. And she just kept screaming about the mess, and she…" He stops, gasps. "She. Washed you away. She took that mop and she washed you away, Dean. Cleaned up the mess, and it wasn't a mess at all, it was you. My brother, who I… she called you a mess. And how dare she, how, how dare—"

"Fuck. Sammy. Sammy."

Dean's voice breaks, and he's reaching out his arms, and Sam throws himself in there, holds on like he might never let go, like he did in New Harmony until Bobby pried his fingers loose. But this time his brother is warm, breathing, alive; Sam can feel Dean's heart thud, and he holds on too and hugs back.

And now that Sam has started, it's like he might never stop. "We just drove, never said a word to each other, just knew we wanted to take you back home to Bobby's," he stumbles on. "We drove non-stop, back roads in case we got pulled over, and we weren't really paying attention. We ran out of gas, middle of nowheresville, and I had to walk a few miles back to a gas station. Bobby said he'd stay with you, and it was the first thing he said to me since before you… and I walked there and back, and the woman at the gas station, she said, have a nice day as I left." He barks out a horrified laugh. "Can you believe that? And it took hours. And it was hot. And we had the windows down, but it was hot, Dean. Real hot. And you, you. You started to. To… and I can still smell it, Dean. My brother rotting on the back seat. I can still. I can… and so we had to stop, couldn't take you home, and—"

"Shhhh," Dean is murmuring into his hair. "Here now. Shhhh. It doesn't matter now."

Sam shakes his head. "No, it does matter. It's the reason, it's why, all of it. Why I couldn't do what you asked, why I couldn't let it go. Why you wasted yourself on me, and you're right. It wasn't worth it. _I_ wasn't worth it. And you shouldn't have, you—"

"Never be a waste, Sammy," Dean slurs. "Wasn't then, isn't now. Don't mind me. Just the drink talking…"

He sounds dazed, tired, sleepy, and Sam disentangles himself, stares into half-lidded, inebriated eyes, knows he'll be carrying Dean back across to the motel if they don't go now. He knows he meant what he said, every damn word, and his heart is wrung out. But he feels hollow inside because he knows it served its purpose too, that it achieved exactly what he hoped it would, and the undercurrent of subterfuge and deceit makes him feel sick to his stomach.

"Come on," he says wearily, and he clambers to his feet, hauls his newly docile brother with him. "Time to sleep it off."

  
The girs scans the photographs, points a flat stare at Hudak. "Nope. Sorry. I ain't seeing the guy here at all."

Hudak taps her pen on the desktop a couple of times, tries to do it calmly but knows she failed when the kid smirks faintly. "Well, could you describe him?" she prods tersely. "We've got a guy here who can sketch."

The girs sniffs. "Yeah. I guess. Tall. Wide."

"Can you give us any more than that? Come on, you said you walked right up to them." _It's painful_ , Hudak thinks, because the girl might be playing dumb but she has this sixth sense about the sly gleam in her eye, this sense it might be the incongruous crafty intelligence of the academically dim genius, the kind of people who can't read or add up to save their lives but who graduated summa cum laude in outthinking, outwitting, outsmarting, outdoing the opposition.

"He looked like that guy in Star Wars," the girl says after pouting. "The old Star Wars."

Getting somewhere, maybe. _At last_. "You mean Mark Hamill? Or Harrison Ford?"

Clueless stare by way of an answer.

"Like Luke Skywalker?" Hudak clarifies.

"Nah," the girl scowls. "The other one."

"Han Solo?" Hudak follows up, sparing a moment to muse abstractedly that even she would walk into the night with a serial killer who looked like Han Solo.

"Not him either. The other guy. The big one." The girl blows out a pink bubblegum balloon at Hudak and it pops, plasters her lips for a few seconds until she peels it off, stuffs it back in there, chews the cud again.

Hudak mentally runs though who's left, and for a second she remembers the werewolf conversation with Coop, thinks wildly that maybe she was right, and that maybe the girl actually saw the thing with its game face on. "The big hairy guy?" she croaks.

"You mean the Wookiee?" The girl gives Hudak a look that's a mixture of amusement and pity. "You think we maybe have a Wookiee problem in Duluth, lady cop?" she quips acidly, and maybe the little bitch is twenty-one after all, because no teenager should be that scathing.

And now Hudak is on the defensive herself and she pauses to admire how effectively the kid has turned the tables on her, feels a grudging respect for her, thinks the brat missed her vocation and should be working this case herself, or maybe prosecuting. "Well, the only other big guy is Darth Vader," she counters. "And since you didn't mention the black mask and the asthma, I'm assuming it wasn't him."

The kid shakes her head, sighs. "The _other_ other big guy. You know. With the tail." She flaps her hands, furrows her brow in concentration. "Wait a second. It's coming back to me."

 _It was there all afuckinglong_ , Hudak thinks snidely.

"Pizza the hut. That guy."

Hudak sends the girl back out into the dark with twenty bucks fisted in her grubby paw. "Stay in tonight, huh?" she says, and the kid looks at her with an odd mix of gratitude and _who the fuck do you think you are, the boss of me?_

"Waste of time," Hudak mutters, but she passes the intel onto Coop just the same. "We're looking for an eight-foot by eight-foot slug-like space alien with a tail," she announces. "Jabba the Hutt, in fact."

He smirks. "I told you it was a man," he says again. "They all are. White males, approximate age twenty-eight point five. Right here in River City, Kathleen. Seventy one percent of these guys operate in a specific location or area, and we're it."

She shrugs. "It's just this whole heart thing, Coop. And the deal with the face. Especially the face. They were good-looking guys. Pretty. It seems…" She pauses, blows out. "I can't believe I'm going to say this, but it seems too bitchy for a man."

Coop snorts. "Three wives later, Katie, I ain't gonna disagree with you on that one. But I don't think it's gonna read scientific enough for the profile." He chews his lip. "In my experience, these guys, they come in three flavors. You got your thrill-seekers, and it's a game to them… it's all about outsmarting us, getting in the newspapers, but those guys, they send messages."

"Like the Zodiac killer," Hudak offers, and she pulls out her chair, sits, because Coop has been in this game for pushing twenty years and he knows it, loves it, and she can learn from him, loves to sit and soak it up, the years of experience.

"Like the Zodiac killer," he nods. "Then you got the ones on a mission from God, clearing out the lowlife scum, Travis Bickle types. But these victims, they weren't scum. We don't even have any real evidence they were cruising for hookers, 'cept this one guy, this Garner kid." He taps the desk with his finger. "Then you got your power and control freaks. And they're in it for the kick, Katie. It's a labor of love for these guys, they enjoy the terror, and the suffering, and the screaming. And I think we got us one of them. Fits in with the assaults too."

"And the face?" Hudak prompts. "The hearts?"

"Souvenirs," he says. "Trophies. A memory of the crime, helps them relive it. He might even be building a shrine." He roots through his files, pulls out a red folder and slides it over. "FBI database pulled up something interesting. Guy's dead though… had a run-in with the Feds, not that long ago, in fact. Pity, since he had a pretty impressive rap sheet. Looks like he ran the gamut from arson and credit card fraud through to murder and torture. There's even some grave desecration in the mix." He grimaces. "Real piece of work. Anyhoo, it's possible the unsub might be connected to him in some way. He's spot on for looks."

Hudak opens it up, knowing who she'll see. And yep, there he is, one of the FBI's most wanted, pulling some dorkish face, next to the other picture from the Milwaukee bank job. And she feels that wave of regret, of pity, of grief for a life wasted, the same one she crushed down inside herself after Bobby's call. She forces it back down now as well. "Could just be a coincidence," she murmurs thickly.

"Could be," Coop agrees amiably. "Most likely is. But it's all we have right now." He lens back in his chair, huffs. "But this guy will get greedy, Katie, they all do. The more they get away with it, the more they start believing their own success, thinking maybe they can take chances. That's when these nutjobs get sloppy. And that's when they get caught."

He seems so sure of himself Hudak doesn't want to remind him that sometimes they don't get caught; that sometimes they aren't nutjobs at all, that they're bright, adaptive. Smarter than the cops, in fact. "You've been watching Criminal Minds again, Coop," she says instead, and he snorts.

"It's a tad more likely than X Files and werewolves, kid."

  
Dean leans against Sam for the first few steps, then lists heavily as his knees buckle, and Sam heaves him up over his shoulder, lurches back across the road to the motel room, eases him down on the bed as carefully as he can.

The smell of stale liquor turns Sam's stomach but any thought of rousing Dean into the shower is forgotten when he turns the lamp on low and gazes down at his brother. Dean is ashen, the shadow of bruising still obvious around his eyes and nose, evidence of the demon's handhold still purpling his neck. Sam hasn't really watched his brother sleeping, tries to sleep when Dean sleeps, before the nightmares wake them both; but he can see that his brother looks scared, tense, uptight, shot to pieces in fact. And it makes him feel sick, makes him feel rage for the fact there is no peace, no rest for Dean.

He glances across to the bottle of Jack next to the bed, debates for a few seconds before he picks it up and walks it to the bathroom to slosh a quarter of what's left down the toilet, before he returns to set it back down on the nightstand. He leans over Dean then, starts unlacing his boots, tugging them off his feet.

Dean comes round, and kicks out, making tired sounds of protest. "Shammy. Leave 'em. On. _On_. Hear me?"

Sam flops his brother's foot down, kneels down on the floor so he's level with his face. "You aren't going anywhere, Dean," he says gently. "The boots come off in bed, jeans and hoodie too. If you puke it'll get all over you. I don't want your puke on my hoodie, okay?" He starts to crawl back down to the end of the bed when his brother snaps his hand out viper fast, panicked, grabs his wrist.

"Need 'em on," he croaks. "Clothes. For when they come. The hounds. Can't be naked down there. When I go back. S'bad news. Sham… Sham. Please." He's barely comprehensible now, wincing as he swallows. "They do bad things down there. Real bad things. In the dark. Tied down. Can't fight." He stops, blinks. "Cas," he mutters. "Don't leave me here… Alastair, he makes me see things that aren't real, can't be real, he makes me see people that aren't really there… Need my clothes, don't want them touching me."

And it's so fundamental, yet Sam never realized why Dean sleeps fully dressed now, sometimes even on top of the bed with his jacket draped over him. And maybe he never even bothered to wonder why. He knows he never bothered to ask. "They aren't coming for you, Dean," he chokes out. "The hounds, they're never coming back. You're never going back there, I promise. I promise. I won't let that happen."

Dean's eyes are already drifting closed and Sam doesn't think he hears the pledge. He eases the boots and jeans off, wrestles his brother's lax body out of the hoodie. After he showers himself off, he maneuvers Dean over towards the wall and sleeps there on the bed beside him, and he knows it's to comfort himself when the dreams start, as much as his brother.

  
The twenty feels soft and warm in her hand, and it's honest money, honest money she came by helping the cops. It makes her preen inside, and she thinks maybe she'll do like the cop lady said, and have herself a night off. Maybe eat like a queen too, so she stops off at Subway and buys a couple of footlongs and a liter of soda, calls into the seven eleven for cigarettes and a can of tuna too.

The elevators in her building have long since stopped working, and she takes a breather on the fourth floor, glances over the balcony at the bright orange and yellow machinery parked a few hundred yards away. There's just a single block between hers and the wrecking ball now. "Soon be time to move," she concedes ruefully before she starts climbing again.

Once on her floor she pushes her door open, and announces herself with a hard rap on the door opposite. "Al," she shouts. "Hey, big Al. Got a footlong for you. Fancy some company?"

The door squeaks open and she stares up, _up_ , as Al maneuvers his huge bulk out sideways. She waves the bag invitingly. "Footlong. Feast, all the meats. Just how you like it. And look…" She roots the can out of her pocket. "Tuna for your cat, even."

He smiles widely, shows her broken stained teeth, but his big, moonlike face lights up. And that makes her feel like she's family.


	5. His Own Hell

Dean's memory is soupy and unclear when he wakes, but he remembers enough to know it was pretty bad, and then pretty vicious, and that after that it got unexpectedly profound, like a ten acts of contrition and ten novenas confession.

His knuckles are hurting, and his shoulder is throbbing, and he's in his tee and shorts again, _not safe_. He casts a furtive glance over at his brother, tap tapping away at the laptop as usual, and Sam's nose and lip are pinkly puffy and grazed, because when Dean socked his brother he made damn sure to use his ring hand.

"You should get some ice on that," he says hoarsely, and Sam wordlessly picks up a baggie, shakes it, and ice chips rustle up and down.

Dean lies there for a few minutes, can feel Sam shooting his own furtive glances over and something else, something like agitation, tumult, pent-up excitement.

"Dean," Sam says finally.

Dean shakes his head. "No. No more. Too much. Not now."

"But we need to talk," his brother persists.

"Do I have to be there?" Dean can hear his voice speeding up, anxious. "And you fuckin' undressed me."

"But Dean, what you said, we really need to—"

"I don't remember half of what I said, Sam," Dean grates out, and he hopes it sounds convincing. "Can we just… move past it?"

"Like we did the siren?" his brother challenges.

 _Dog with a fuckin' bone_ , Dean thinks. Just like he has been with Lilith.

"Dean," Sam tries again. "Please. What you said, it just… it doesn't make sense to me, and I—"

Palming his face, Dean cuts his brother off with groaned-out frustration. "What? What did I say that doesn't make sense, Sam? I can't remember a damn thing about last night except for throwing down on you, and I don't remember why the fuck I even did that. Christ. I need a shower."

"Do you remember what I said?"

Sam's voice is soft, uncertain, and Dean hasn't heard his brother sound like that since… since _before_ , he thinks. He swallows thickly. "I remember."

"And are we… okay?"

Sam's eyes are bright, hopeful, and still there's that underlying buzz of something Dean can't put his finger on, like his brother knows something.

"We're okay," Dean mutters anyway, and he hopes he isn't lying. He he rolls over on to his side and pushes himself up to sit, breathes in and regrets it. "I stink." _Of sweat, and shots, and sex_ , he thinks. _And self-hatred_.

"Yeah… you've seen some action."

Sam is cautious, like he's picking his way across thin ice or shifting sands, because that's what bridges the chasm between them these days, Deam muses. There's no striding across solid ground to meet each other in the middle anymore, it's all sideways moves, two steps forward and one yard back, maybe even like that cave in Raiders where one wrong step trips booby traps that shoot poisoned darts or roll rocks the size of houses straight at them.

"You said it was my fault," Sam barks out abruptly then. "My fault you made the deal, went to Hell. Because I didn't kill Jake Talley when I had the chance. And you said Yellow Eyes wanted you down there."

Well, that wasn't cautious. No sideways moves there, in fact it feels like Sam just grabbed a long branch and pole-vaulted across the chasm, knocked Dean flat on his back, and is straddling him and beating it out of him. Or maybe even doing that whole evil hand thing, like he did with Samhain, and squeezing it out of him that way. "It's bullshit, Sam," Dean covers wearily. "What I said was refried bullshit. I was on the prod for a fight and that's all. I know why you didn't kill Jake. And I made the choice to deal. It wasn't your fault."

"But what you said, Dean, about Yellow Eyes wanting you, what did you—"

"I was drunk," Dean cuts in fast. "I was being a mean drunk. And that is all I have to say about it, because my throat feels like a fuckin' blowtorch had at it." He knows how that feels, and he reaches for his Jack, downs a few fingers in one, muses that the really good thing about soul-baring confessions to his brother is that Sam keeps his trap shut when he drinks himself senseless right afterwards.

And sure enough Sam sighs, turns back to the laptop, just keeps on tapping, doesn't aim the bitchface at him, doesn't even tense up. Which is peachy, because Dean doesn't ever want to tell his brother he damned the world when he got off Alastair's rack.

  
Dean knows it's a fuckin' cliché, but since Hell he scrubs himself raw in the shower, till his skin is firetruck red and sore in patches, even though never feels clean afterwards. Sometimes he fancies the dash of the water against the tile sounds like sizzling fat, and that he can still smell sulfur, and his own burning flesh and hair, so he keeps his eyes open in there. It means he can see, even if the sting of cheap motel shampoo sends painful tears streaming down his cheeks along with the water, means he can see that where he is it's ceramic, white, blue, green, patterned, _whatever_ , but ceramic. It's the _world_ , not the underworld, not the lake of fire, not the molten heart of the earth, and he isn't listening to the screams of the damned.

He comes back to himself huddled in the corner of the shower cubicle, shivering, the water long cold, and he opens his mouth to it, welcomes its chill because it quenches the fire and he remembers the thirst.

Sam is quiet, still tapping away at the keyboard, and he doesn't look up as Dean exits the bathroom. Dean takes advantage and knocks back another mouthful of his falling-down water, spares a minute to ponder the fact that he needs a tank of Dutch courage to fuel even the simplest conversations with his brother these days. "Last night," he ventures finally, because the quiet stretches between them like an invisible wall with invisible footholds he can't climb up without some help. "Uh, you said Bobby called."

Sam perks up, looks relieved. "Yeah, he did. He's here actually – just gone to get us breakfast. He got a call from Kathleen… Kathleen Hudak, remember her?"

Hell yes, and it gives Dean a sudden toastie-warm, content feeling low down in his gut that has nothing to do with the whiskey he's suckling on. He smiles, and it might be the first genuine smile he's smiled since Oktoberfest, because he's remembering that she can put her right leg behind her ear, and she has these boots that go all the way up to her—

"Dude! Too much information."

Dean jolts back to the now to see his brother grimacing. "Huh?" he prompts.

"You're thinking out loud, Dean," Sam tells him. "Word to the wise – don't. There are some things I just don't need to know."

His voice is mixture of amused and fake shock, not exactly effortless because they don't exactly have their groove back. And the words plummet Dean back down to earth despite the intended humor, and he thinks bleakly that _fuck_ , Sam is right. There are some things he just doesn't need to know.

"So what's the deal with Kathleen then?" he fishes once he has his brain back under control.

Sam is fairly humming with satisfaction and achievement. "She called Bobby about a case, guys going missing and turning up dead—"

"Wait a minute," Dean jumps in, because he has this nasty, cold, squirming feeling in his guts now. "This isn't happening in the woods is it? Because if it is, she's on her own. I don't care how many hikers she finds, I'm not—"

"Bobby doesn't think so," Sam says quickly. She left a message, but the answerphone was full up and cut her off. Bobby says it was a Duluth number."

"Duluth?" Dean spits out, on the memory of plunging into cold, oily water while his shoulder sparked agony. "Fuck that. Duluth is just as bad. That bitch, Meg. Christ. You plugged me, and then you… my shoulder hurt for months after that."

Bitchface #twelve. "Whatever Dean," Sam concedes, "but get this, these guys all look like—"

A light tap on wood pulls Sam up and he stands, peers through the curtain before opening the door to the old man.

"I come bearing gifts," Bobby announces, holds up a paper bag.

"Donut Diner," Dean grins. "Oh thank God. Tell me there's coffee too."

Bobby sets down the bag, lifts out a cup and sets it on the nightstand next to Dean, tips his head up, hand under his chin. "When Sam told me that demon broke your nose, boy, I was real worried," Bobby says dryly. "Glad to see you're still beautiful. And that you're clean. You smelled like a dead pig sunbathing when I got here."

 _Rotting_ , Dean thinks suddenly. _Rotting on the back seat, after my brother saw me ripped to shreds_. He's thrown for a second, gazes up dumbly. The old man's voice might be steady but his eyes don't lie, and the care and worry Dean can see there do strange fluttering things to his heart, so he forces himself to think past hellhounds and puddles of his own blood.

He pops the lid off the coffee, rolls his eyes theatrically. "It's milky. And frothy. Is this a fuckin' crappacino?"

"Don't look at me," Bobby defends mildly, jerks his head over at the table. "Your brother said the usual was off the menu for a week or so till your throat heals inside."

Scowling, Dean retorts, "Let me guess. It's fuckin' skinny too. And decaf." When the old man's back is turned, he sloshes some of his Jack in, and he sees Sam's eyebrows come down, sees his jaw tighten. _Screw it_ , he thinks. _It's happy hour somewhere_. "So," he goes on. "Dead guys in Duluth. And this is interesting why?"

Bobby sniffs. "Six of them, according to what your brother found out. Kathleen didn't say much – just the bare facts. But apparently they've been cut up real bad, and the hearts are missing. She reckons it might be a werewolf."

Dean sinks a draught of _notfuckin'realcoffeewithakick_ , wipes froth off his lips. "Well. Werewolves do take the heart," he concludes.

Sam clears his throat. "There's more, Dean. Kathleen's message… before she got cut off, she said the victims all resembled someone, so I hacked into police records. They all look like you. See?"

He twists the laptop around so Dean is looking at two faces, alike, two more, and again, alike. All alike, he supposes. "They don't look anything like me," he declares.

"They look like you, boy," Bobby growls. "Fatter, some of 'em. Older. More hair maybe. But they look like you."

Dean shrugs. "Picky werewolf? With extremely good taste?"

"Dean, for Christ's sake. Surely you can see what this is?"

Sam snaps it out, impatient, excited, _smarter_ , and the words have a serrated edge that grazes Dean's nerves with the confirmation that they aren't okay. "Why don't you enlighten me, Sam?" he ices out, but if his brother hears the tension in his voice he ignores it.

"It has to be connected to Lilith," Sam races on. "It has to be. Demons killing guys who look like you. They take the face, Dean, they—"

"The face," Dean interrupts, and he's lost now. "They take the face? What the hell does that mean?"

"All these guys had their faces sliced off," Bobby says. "Your brother thinks it might be some kind of bounty hunting deal."

Dean goggles. "You're saying you think this is demon bounty hunters chasing me because Lilith has some kind of contract out on me?" He manages to inject a note of amused disbelief in there even though he's doing the math, even though he can hear Castiel's voice in his head, _the righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it_ , even though it isn't a big jump to assume Lilith might know that too. It suddenly occurs to him that it might be why Alastair was chasing him, and he concludes that it damn well might just make sense even as he protests the opposite.

"It's a reach."

"Why is it a reach?" Sam challenges, and he's damned aggressive with it. "It makes sense, Dean. You're the one that got away, and she can't find you because of the hexbags Ruby gave us after Alastair tracked us down again in Greybull. So maybe she has her demon army out there killing guys who look like you, like the slaughter of the innocents, or something. Take out all the possible Deans, and maybe get the real one while they do it. They're taking the face as proof."

"That's fuckin' ridiculous," Dean shoots back dismissively, maybe even desperately. "Anyway, Bobby said whatever this is takes the heart too. Demons don't do that, Sam. I'm telling you, this is nothing more than coincidence and there's no way—"

"Maybe they're taking the hearts because of what you did in Hell," Sam says, and his eyes are shining even brighter now because it's a lightbulb moment after all. "Think about it, Dean. You said you gave in and climbed off the rack after thirty years, and that you tortured souls yourself for another ten. There must have been some slicing and dicing involved… were hearts your signature or something? Maybe they're trying to draw you out by doing the same to the victims, maybe they're… Dean? _Dean_?"

The room is spinning, fading in and out, and Dean is dizzy, can't suck in the oxygen he needs. His vision is tunneling, going black, and he feels weak, ill. He looks up to see dawning horror on Bobby's face as he slips off the bed to his knees, and he reaches up to the old man, _you're like a father to me_ , and stutters out apologies. He can hear his own voice from miles away, faint and breathless, "Bobby, I'm so sorry… I couldn't help it, I tried, to hold out, I tried, please forgive me, please…"

He's vaguely aware of Sam babbling out a string of apologies in the background as Bobby catches him, _was there ever really any doubt?_ and the old man holds him tight and close.

"Nothing to forgive," Bobby mutters. "I got you, son. And there is nothing to forgive. You hear me? Nothing to forgive."

  
Bobby is all tangled up with Dean on the floor between the beds, and the old man's expression is bleak as he reaches for the liquor bottle on the nightstand. There's barely a half-inch of amber fluid in it, and he glances over at Sam. "My duffel, Sam," he prompts quietly. "There's another bottle in it."

Sam gapes. "He's been tippling since he woke. I think he's had enough."

One of Bobby's eyebrows shoots up. "He needs a drink. Fetch the bottle. _Now_."

It's an order, and Sam does as he's told, passing the bottle over to Bobby as he leans Dean back against the bed. "Glass," Bobby says. "Or a cup. Something."

There's a half-empty glass of water beside his bed and Sam tips the dregs out onto the carpet, hands it over.

Bobby pours a couple of fingers out, holds the glass up to Dean's lips. "Dean. Drink. Do as you're told, boy."

Dean isn't looking at either of them, and his face is blank, distant and disconnected. He seems barely aware of what he's doing for a few seconds until he realizes what's in the glass, and then he chokes the liquid down in a single gulp.

"You remember the Pit," Bobby says abruptly, and Dean flicks his eyes up for just a second before he looks down again. Sam can see he's shivering, and Bobby pulls the blanket off the bed, drapes it around his shoulders.

"Dean," Bobby pushes. He grips Dean's jaw, forces him to look up, but Dean doesn't meet his eyes.

"He does remember it," Sam says quietly. "He remembers all of it. He told me."

Bobby's head swivels around. "Yeah, I could tell," he snaps. "And I'm guessing he told you in confidence. Jesus, Sam. What the hell were you thinking, boy?"

"I wasn't thinking," Sam blurts out. "It just came out, I just—forgot you were here. It's been… pretty intense. This last day or so."

Bobby pulls his cap off, scratches his head. "I thought he blanked it all out?" he says. It's almost indignant, and pain radiates from his eyes. "I thought he was doing okay. That he was clear of this."

"He was," Sam says. "Well. Sort of. He was having bad dreams from pretty much day one but… not anything really bad, not Jacob's Ladder dreams. It was the ghost sickness that really kicked it off, and since then it's been worse. And he's drinking again, like after Bender."

The old man nods slowly, turns back to Dean. "Dean. Son. Can you… can you just. Tell me. Talk to me. I'm right here, boy, right here. We can—"

"He won't tell you, Bobby," Sam interjects. "He won't even talk to me about it any more." He swallows hard on that, because he knows why it's all still festering inside his brother, sees it in his eyes every day, _I don't want to be holding you back or nothing_. "You know how he bottles things up," he continues, past the dust-dry feeling in his throat that sets in with the acknowledgment of his own culpability in his brother's reticence to share any more than he has. "He's too… he's… it just. It bothers him."

Bobby narrows his eyes. "I can imagine. But what you said… thirty years. And torturing souls. What did you mean by that, Sam? What the hell is he doing down on his knees pleading forgiveness? What is this?"

Sam sighs, rubs hard at his head as he rounds the end of the bed and sits down on it, his leg leaning up against Bobby's shoulder, and he looks down at his brother. "Dean," he says softly.

His brother hears him, looks up, holds Sam's gaze for a long moment, and then he shrugs sort of, looks down and away again.

"Okay, this is what he told me," Sam starts. "Time… it moves differently in Hell. It's like dog years or something. It was four months for us, but it was more like forty years for him."

Sam can already see Bobby's shoulders tensing up as he speaks and he stops, has to inhale deeply. It occurs to him that this is the first time he's really thought or spoken about Hell, except for the time he threw it back in his brother's face, and he's suddenly appalled at the fact he's been able to put it behind him and move on; that he only thinks of what his brother endured in relation to getting angry, getting _even_ , in relation to his own personal Winchester revenge quest, and fuck the collateral damage to what's left of his family.

He considers it: that since his brother was resurrected, the only times he has really thought about what was actually done to Dean were the three times Dean spoke about it, and that for all his exhortations to Dean to share and _don't spare the details_ , his brother's obstinate silence has been a relief. Because despite Dean's denial, Sam knows he's the reason it happened, and he can damn well do without being reminded of it any more than he already is, in his brother's haunted expression, drunken slurring, dull-eyed hangovers and night terrors. "You know what goes on in the Pit," he mutters. "Every day it happened, and then they made him whole and started over. And what they did to him, they—"

Bobby clears his throat harshly, and when Sam looks down he sees the old man's fists are clenched, his knuckles white. _Twenty-five years_ , he thinks, and he can hear Bobby's voice loud and clear in his head like the man is saying the words to him here and now, _your brother was my second chance, Sam_. And even though he knows the look Dean gave him, and his lack of protest, are tacit permission to continue, Sam can't do it and he fast-forwards. "Thing is, the demon who ran the show, he's been trying to get to Dean," he says. "Ruby gave us hexbags that kept us hidden, but the angels trapped him. They needed his intel and they thought he might… _respond_ to Dean. They had him in a devil's trap but he got out and Dean couldn't—he wasn't able to…" He throws up a hand. "The demon was stronger. It turned nasty."

Bobby looks up, narrows his eyes. "It was the demon you were just hunting? Who beat up on him? Jesus, Sam, why didn't you boys tell me this, tell me he remembered, I could have—"

"It's like a code of fucking silence," Sam blurts out. "That's what it is, Bobby. I don't know how we got here, but he can't, he won't – tell me. Because he's… because I – I can't bear to hear it. He knows it. So he keeps it in there. And it's killing him."

Bobby growls out some undefined noise of frustration, sinks his face into his hands for a second. "Jesus, you messed-in-the-head Winchesters. Haven't you learned anything, both of you?" His voice starts to rise, brittle with anger. "I never met any family as close as you two boys, but can you not just sit down and have an honest fuckin' conversation instead of letting it eat you from the inside until you both screw it up so monumentally it ends with—"

"Sammy isn't exactly being truthful, Bobby."

Dean still isn't looking at either of them, but his hand snakes out, grabs the bottle, and he takes a few gulps.

"Dean, you don't have to…" Sam trails off as Bobby shoots him a look of such ferocity that he feels chills. He hasn't hunted with Bobby, but he somehow knows that look is the look he'd see gleaming in the man's eyes if he were hunting Sam, and he braces for the right hook he knows will be flying his way once his brother spills what he said in Bedford.

"I did a lot of reading before I went away," Dean continues, softly. "You never knew that did you, Sammy?" He looks up, but his eyes are shuttered. "I couldn't sleep sometimes. I was. I was scared. I guess. And forewarned is forearmed. Something like that, anyway."

Sam stares at Dean, feels his tension easing so swiftly he wonders if it's audible, because it's like every single pore breathes out a sigh of relief at the free pass he knows he doesn't deserve, the _reprieve_. He has to steel himself so he doesn't sag as every muscle abruptly relaxes.

Dean worries his lower lip for a second, looks down again. "I read that Hell was nothing more than a spiritual condition, a state of loss that happens to you when your soul turns away from God." He huffs out at that, and Sam thinks that one small derisive puff of air speaks volumes.

"And then I read that it was a dungeon of filth, and punishment, and torment, and su-suffering." Dean must notice that he stutters because he stops, and Sam can see him blink hard, breathe deep, steel himself. He wonders if this is where his brother is going to close down and brick it up, because there aren't words; and maybe Bobby concludes as much too, because he puts his hand on Dean's.

"Son…" Bobby says, and Sam can see his brother's fingers start plucking convulsively at the carpet, see the old man's fingers close around them.

"I read that it was cold and gloomy in Hell, that it was ice, and blizzards, a frozen lake of guilt, and shame, and everlasting contempt." Dean's voice doesn't falter now, it's steady, low. "And then I read that it was boiling hot and fiery, deserts of scalding-hot sand, sheer drops, sharp rock, and jagged thorns, winds that scraped the flesh off your bones, trees made of razor blades that you had to climb while vultures tore at you, and rivers of blood that you drowned in." He stops, seems to consider what he just said and Sam sees him swallow hard, sees a muscle twitch in his cheek, sees him just barely nod, and it tells him something he doesn't want to know.

"I read that it was a garbage dump for souls that didn't accept Jesus Christ as their savior. But then… then I read that Hell purified your soul and sent you to Heaven if you repented." At that, Dean's voice rises slightly, sounds hopeful, and Sam knows in that moment, without a shadow of a doubt, that his brother's last conscious thought before he bled out, before his heart arrested and his brain switched off, was focused on that one vision of _redemption_.

Dean takes another pull at the bottle, and then another. And another, and he keeps looking down. "And then I went to Hell, and I found out that Hell isn't a single one of those things," he says dully. "Hell is _all_ of those things. And I. I…" Dean does choke then, puts the heel of his hand up to his brow. "I _repented_. I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior, and I repented like you wouldn't fuckin' believe." He laughs, and it's agonized, desperate. "But my soul wasn't purified. And I never got to leave and go to Heaven." His lower lip is trembling and he sucks it in again, bites down on it so hard a bead of blood appears, and Sam winces, sees Bobby flinch in his peripheral vision.

"See, there's this other thing I read about Hell," Dean whispers then. "It's endless. It's forever. It stretches into eternity, in perpetuity. It's damnation without relief. And that's what makes it Hell. What makes it unbearable. What breaks you, and corrupts you, and depraves you." He looks at Bobby, smiles weakly. "I can never tell you, Bobby. What they did. Never. I could never do that to you."

Sam wants to go, wants to get up, get his jacket and walk away from this, walk away from it all, because Bobby's shoulders are heaving now, and his brother is shuffling forward on his butt, wrapping his arms around the old man.

"But I need something from you," Dean is saying. "Every day he made me an offer, see? The demon. Alastair. And every day I said no. For thirty years, Bobby. But Hell is forever. And I couldn't help myself, I couldn't do it forever. I was weak. And Hell broke me. It corrupted me. It depraved me. Alastair made Hell into all of those things for me, for thirty years. And then I spent ten years making Hell into all of those things for—"

"No, dammit."

Bobby's outcry is wretched, fractured. He pulls loose, shoots bolt upright, and Sam sees his brother's face crumple in dismay as the old man lurches into the bathroom and retches violently.

Sam knows he can be no comfort, that this rejection is something Dean may never recover from, and suddenly all he can hear in his head is his own scorn and contempt, _boo-hoo_. "Dean, I'm sorry," he chokes out. "I'm so fucking sorry."

Dean doesn't respond, picks up the bottle again, drinks long and steady before slumping, and Sam sees for the first time how faded his brother is, how worn out, because Dean is pushing seventy and it has been a hard-knock life, and maybe he's starting to think that throwing the towel in might be easier than putting up a fight.

Bobby staggers back through the bathroom door and his face is pasty, his eyes stark. He stares at Dean, horror etched so clearly on his features that Sam reckons he could make out the letters if he looked close enough.

"Bobby," Dean slurs. "Please. I need something from you. You're the only one who can. So please."

He drops the bottle, holds up his hands as what's left of the liquor spills listlessly out onto the carpet, and it hits Sam like a lightning bolt, Dean's naked expression even though he's smashed out of his brain, his hands reaching, his confused logic. Their dad is long gone, but Bobby is like a father to him, and he sees it dawn on the old man's face that his brother needs absolution almost the instant he realizes it himself.

Bobby's face is even more appalled if that's possible. "Does he think I…? I said there's nothing to forgive, does he think I _blame_ him?"

He strides across the room, flings himself down and gathers Dean into his arms, and sounds of distress start up.

And Sam picks up his jacket and his cellphone, and leaves.


	6. Promises to Keep

Sam has to fold himself practically in half to fit into Ruby's car, and she smirks at his clumsiness.

"Maybe we should cut off your legs at the knees," she jokes as she peels out of the parking lot.

Sam looks at her, thinks about climbing trees made of razor blades while vultures swoop in and tear strips off him. She stares back briefly, and then flicks her gaze to the road ahead.

"So," she says after a moment of quiet. "When you called, you said you think this business in Duluth could be Lilith trying to draw your brother out."

"It makes sense." Sam slants his eyes sideways, fishes, "You said you'd follow up some leads. Anything turn up?"

Ruby shakes her head. "Nope. And to be honest, it lacks her usual finesse."

Sam snorts and she throws him an irritated look. "I'm just saying," she snipes. "Don't go all shock and awe on me. But I guess if he's still using the hexbag, she can't find him. So in that way it makes sense that she might take the scenic route." She scrunches her nose up thoughtfully before she continues. "Though it seems like a lot of trouble to go to. I mean – he isn't that important, Sam. It's not as if he has the juice to stop her, is it? He knows it too, that's why he's staying out of the fight. It's common sense when you're outmatched." She thinks on it for another minute. "He is still using the hexbag isn't he?"

For a second Sam is flummoxed, has no idea. He tries to visualize the pouch hanging around his brother's neck and finds he can't. "I'm pretty sure he is, but he wears it inside his shirt," he offers. "Wouldn't you know if he didn't have it on him? Wouldn't he trip your radar?"

Another headshake. "I haven't looked for either of you since I gave you the hexbags after Alastair tracked your brother down in Greybull. I just wait for you to call me."

Throwing up a hand, Sam pushes, "Can you sense him now?"

Ruby frowns, and her eyes darken for a second. "It's faint. But I think it's him. Smells like the Pit, anyway."

Sam's mouth freezes open in an O of disbelief for a good twenty seconds, and then the sick, helpless feeling that overwhelmed him as Dean poured it all out is suddenly lost in a bright flare of anger that his brother cares so little for his safety, cares so little for himself, thinks he doesn't matter, just like he thought he didn't matter when he made the deal. "Christ," he spits out, slamming his fist on the window. "Fucking idiot. Stupid fucking _idiot_. What the fuck does he think this is, some kind of joke? He knows he isn't safe without it… why can't he just do as he's damn well told for once, what the hell do I have to—"

"Hey, calm down, Sam," Ruby cuts in. "I said it was faint. The mojo could just be wearing off the bags. They fade. I'll make you some fresh ones."

Sam's irritation with his brother still hums through his whole body, tension streaking up through his neck so that his head starts to ache with it. "I know him," he grits out. "He will not be told, has to be in control. Jerk. He's ditched the damn thing. I know it." He taps his hand on his thigh, thinks past his brother's vulnerability to a possible solution. "Can you look for her?"

"Lilith?" Ruby grimaces. "Nope. She shut me out the second I went rogue."

"And you couldn't locate her with that flaming map thing?" Sam persists. "Like you did to find Dean?"

Ruby's response is smooth but firm. "Only works on people. Anyway, I do have a sense of self-preservation."

It falls quiet, and after miles of endless road Sam thinks to ask her something he never has before. "When Lilith took your other meatsuit, she sent you back to Hell."

Ruby doesn't answer him for a second, but when she does her tone is guarded. "Yes, she did."

"That means you were down there with Dean," Sam says flatly, and he sees her knuckles flex and whiten on the steering wheel.

"Hell's a big place," she says matter-of-factly. "I know where you're going with this, but I never saw your brother. And even if I had, Lilith wouldn't have let me anywhere near him."

It makes sense, Sam supposes. "In case you helped him."

"Yeah." Ruby nods slowly. "I'd have helped him, Sam. There are ways out. Gates. You know that. I'd have helped him. Helped you get him back inside his body."

It's an unwelcome memory of the days after, the books, the spells, the bottomless black pool inside him that Sam willingly dove into; the desperation, the dying hope that he might be able to summon his brother back to the world, the nightmares where he reanimated a soulless, rotting husk that never slept and stared at him with dead, empty eyes until he sent it back. He swallows dryly. "What is it like down there?"

Ruby's head snaps around and her eyes are black for a few seconds. "You never asked me that before," she says. "Even after they dragged him there, you never asked me that."

 _I didn't want to know_ , Sam thinks. "Well, I'm asking you now," he tells her. As he speaks, her eyes soften to liquid brown again and something more, because he has seen exultation, excitement, fury, scorn, and lust shine out of them, but he thinks this might be the first time he's seen sadness in them.

"Oh, Sammy," she murmurs, and he sees her grip the steering wheel more tightly. "There aren't words."

The echo of his brother's sorrow twists Sam's stomach as he stares out the window at the landscape streaking by.

"You know, if it is her this could be a big break for us," Ruby follows up after a short time. "We could stop her. Stop her breaking the seals. Stop the apocalypse."

"How many seals are left?" Sam asks, and her lips quirk in a smile.

"Shouldn't you know that, Sam?" she mocks gently. "Shouldn't your brother's angel boyfriend be telling you this?"

"Just shut up and drive," Sam parries, irritable with it because he's seen the way Castiel fixes on Dean like he's all there is, seen the way Dean stares back sometimes like he's lost in the angel's gaze. "Dean doesn't swing that way."

"You're out of the loop," Ruby observes a few miles later.

Sam scowls. "I think I'd know if Dean swung that way."

"Loser," she snorts. "I mean the seals. It's probably need-to-know. I bet Dean's out of the loop, too." She pulls the car over onto the verge, shuts off the engine. "One," she says. "I've heard that one is all that's left. One standing between us and Armageddon, Sam. We'll all be Hellbound then."

One left, and Sam's mind is racing headlong through all of the possible scenarios that might result from his broken brother charging headlong into the fray to defend the final seal against the demon who dragged him kicking and screaming to Hell. "One," he breathes. "Are you sure about that?"

"It's what I've heard," Ruby says, intense. "If it's right, well… it's looking pretty serious, Sam. I can't believe the angels haven't said anything about it."

"They aren't exactly chatty," Sam grunts.

"Didn't they say their garrison was taking some pretty serious knocks?" she ventures. "Isn't that what this whole mess with Alastair and your brother was about? Something killing angels? Sounds to me like they're dropping the ball." She drums her fingers on the steering wheel. "You could stop it, Sam," she continues.

Sam stares at her, speechless for a minute. "I don't," he starts. "I can't—ready. I'm not ready… am I?"

Ruby unbuckles her seatbelt, wriggles nimbly across onto his lap, catches his face between her hands. "You can be ready, Sam, you know how… you could stop her. It might be her. In Duluth. You could go there, you and Dean, and stop her."

That prospect sends a curl of horror winding nimbly through Sam's gut, and he pulls her hands away, shakes his head. "No, not Dean. He's still mending, he isn't… he's—I can't lose him again."

Ruby's brows pull down. "But you have to take him with you, Sam. If it's her, she'll only show herself for Dean. She wants him, wants him back, wants to—"

"Fuck, no," Sam cuts her off, his hands flying up to grip her shoulders. "What the fuck did you just say?" he spits out sharp and savage. "Wants him _back_? What the fuck does that mean? I thought she just wanted him dead." He's appalled, horrified, fucking furious if he's honest, and all he can see shining in Ruby's eyes is his brother's unhappy, worried expression as he implores Sam to leave him clothed because they're coming back for him.

"Dean isn't important in the scheme, Sam," Ruby races out. "He doesn't matter in the big picture, he can't fight Lilith. But she's a really bad loser… so if this is her, then this isn't just about killing him. She's doing it because she wants him back downstairs where he belongs." She cocks her head. "Didn't you know that?" she says softly. "Didn't he tell you? Or maybe the angel never told him…"

"What?" Sam gasps. "Told him what?"

"This isn't just about Lilith ending your brother," Ruby says, low and confidential, like she's afraid someone might be listening. "A deal is a deal. The angel may have pulled Dean out, but Hell is where he's supposed to be and he's going back there unless you kill Lilith. Stopping the apocalypse is the bonus."

Sam digs his fingertips hard into her skin, feels the bone beneath the dead flesh. "But I promised him," he hisses. "I promised him he was never going back there."

Ruby leans close, and her hair curtains her face and his. "And you can keep your promise this time," she breathes into his ear. "You can stop it. But you need to be strong for it, Sam. You need to be strong to face her, you need to be strong to save your brother, you know you do…"

And she presses his face into her and he doesn't even have to think twice before he bites down into the sulfurous flesh and blood, and loses himself in her.

  
Bobby doesn't know how much time has passed, doesn't want to move, even though his knees are cramping and his back is killing him, but he manages to maneuver himself around onto his backside. He leans against the bed and puffs out through the sting of blood racing through thirsty veins and arteries, as he unfolds his legs and eases them down flat.

Dean lies heavy in his arms and heavy on his heart, cradled against his chest, and for a second Bobby gets a flash of himself opening the door, seeing Dean standing there, uncertain. His cheeks had been pink with the sun, like he'd just gotten back from taking a vacation somewhere hot, and Bobby almost chuckles at the irony.

He leans his head back against the mattress, thinks about small hands fisted in his shirt, wonders whose hands he really sees when he daydreams. In truth, it has been so long now that he has to break out his shoebox of old Polaroids if he wants to remind himself what his real boy looked like; and in so many ways, this one is his real boy now, and Dean is blended into those memories, so that the voice calling him daddy merges into a voice calling him uncle Bobby, and if he ever imagines his real boy as a full-grown man, this is who he sees. So Bobby grips on tight and waits for his boy to wake because this time Dean _will_ wake, this time he isn't cradling something empty and broken beyond repair, isn't looking at shredded meat. He lays his cheek down on top of Dean's head, feels welcome heat. "Last time I held you like this, you were gone, son," he murmurs. "I sat in your car, and you on the back seat all covered up, like it was some bad horror movie and you were about to sit up and reach out for me."

Dean shifts in his arms, mutters something, and Bobby leans closer, looks into drowsy eyes, a slow smile.

"Stupid old man," Dean says softly, and he wriggles himself away so that he's beside Bobby, leaning up against him shoulder-to-shoulder.

"That I was," Bobby muses. "And I wanted to get out, start walking, _keep_ walking, just leave it behind me. And I did get out." He sees Dean slant his eyes over, and he nods in confirmation. "And I got in the back there with you," he goes on, "and I held you in my arms, like just now, and I kept thinking about those times when you were just a kid, after your dad left you and Sam at the lot, and I'd drink myself comatose every damn night." He thinks about it now, about how he would wake with a small, warm body nestled up against him, and he smiles. "And when I came round the next day, you'd be curled right there on the couch with me, sleeping through the stink of my liquor and vomit, with your hands hanging onto my shirt so tight I couldn't loose them. Like you were afraid to let go."

Bobby has to stop and take in a deep breath as emotion threatens to overcome him. "And so I sat there with you in the back of the car, and I thought maybe if I went to sleep I'd wake up and your hands would be hanging on just like that, like it never happened. And I closed my eyes…" His voice trips up, chokes him, and he's aware of Dean looking down, a muscle jumping in his cheek. "And there were a few seconds there where I could swear I felt you grab on tight," he goes on finally. "But I opened my eyes and you hadn't moved at all." He stares ahead at the other bed. "You broke my heart boy. You broke my heart."

It's still and quiet for a minute, just soft breathing. And then Dean reaches across ad fists a handful of Bobby's shirt.

  
Ruby drops Sam off on the side of the road and he walks the rest of the way, skulking outside the motel room for ten or fifteen minutes until Bobby comes out.

"What the hell are you doing hiding out here?" the old man queries gruffly.

Sam shrugs helplessly. "I don't know. I'm not. Hiding, I mean. I'm just, I don't know, just…"

Bobby is as blunt as ever. "Working up the guts?"

Sam smiles ruefully. "Jesus, Bobby. I'm so sorry. It just came out, it just… it's been me and him together, pretty intense." He throws up his hands. "I – forgot you were there, I think." He walks to the curb, sits down there. "So… how mad is he?"

Bobby's knees creak as he sits down beside Sam. "He isn't mad. He's just tired. And you know he feels bad about Pamela too. He's exhausted by it all, and depressed." He nudges his knee against Sam's. "He was asking for you. He isn't mad Sam, honest. I think he's relieved if anything. Maybe this'll help. Carrying that round inside him, he never should have—"

"Made the deal," Sam says, because he knows that's where the old man is going, thinks it himself. "He never should have made the deal. What's dead should stay dead. He said that. After dad did it for him. And even after dad… he still did it. He still did it. I don't understand that."

Bobby blows out a long exhale, shakes his head. "You know why he did it, Sam," he says. "He was out of his mind with it. You know what that feels like. And it was wrong, what he did, but it's done, and he did it for love, boy. The sun always did rise and set with you as far as Dean was concerned."

There's an edge to Bobby's voice that has Sam pricking up his ears. "You don't think it should," he says softly.

Bobby shifts uncomfortably beside him. "I can understand him doing it, Sam," he says finally. "But I can't understand him thinking he's worth less. And I don't like him thinking his sole reason in life is you. There's more to your brother than you. Way more. And I'm sorry if this isn't coming out right, but sometimes I wish he'd never gone to look for you. He deserves more than just to – revolve around you. He should have left you." He shrugs. "There you go. I said it."

"But he did leave me," Sam counters. "And I don't think he's worth less than me, Bobby, and I didn't ask him to trade his soul for me. Did he really think I wouldn't be as messed up as he was? It was selfish."

"Well, yeah," the old man concedes. "You could look at it that way, and God knows I'd just as soon not have lived through the last six months. Maybe love is selfish. But you aren't immune from it, Sam. From deals and suchlike."

Sam looks up sharply. "How do you know that? How do you—"

"Come on, Sam," Bobby jumps in, with a sort of mild exasperation. "In Pontiac, when we tracked you down. You said you tried to deal for Dean, get him back, said no demon would do it. Well, what if they had? It isn't any less selfish because it's you doing it." He stops, waits for Sam's reply, continues when Sam is mute. "You think he would have wanted to trade places? Be up out of the Pit knowing you were down there in his place? And let's not forget your little adventure with Roy Le Grange. That is one of the reasons why your brother reckoned he was already living on borrowed time."

Sam scowls at that, and Bobby nudges him.

"I'm not doing you down, boy," he says. "I know you didn't know what was going on with Le Grange. What I'm saying is that it's wheels within wheels, it's you boys never letting go. You aren't to blame for this, and neither is Dean. You just can't let go of each other, and unlike most other folks you have the means at your disposal so that you don't have to."

Sam finally manages to force out words. "I just. I just, I can't… I don't want to think that he went through that for me, that I'm to blame."

Sighing, Bobby repeats, "But you aren't to blame, boy, your—"

"I'll always be to blame, Bobby, and I'll always feel guilty." Sam barks out a hollow laugh. "He did it for _me_."

Bobby pulls off his cap and rubs at his head and considers his response. "Sam, your brother chose to do what he did. Blame… that's all tied into the life, the way your dad made Dean feel like you were his job, the fact he was left to parent you when he was just a kid himself. Hell, even I'm to blame for some of it."

Sam raises his eyebrows. "Why would you think that?"

"I left him," Bobby says quietly. "After Cold Oak. He was nine kinds of messed up, and I pulled out, left him there by himself with you. I should have known, should have known he'd most likely go and do something stupid." He looks down, shakes his head a little. "And sometimes I wonder if I left him there by himself with you because some part of me _did_ know. When I should have pistol whipped him and burned you."

Something dawns on Sam with the old man's words. "Is that why you didn't pistol whip me and burn him after New Harmony?" he asks, harsher that he meant to. "I told you he'd need his body when I brought him back. Did you let me bury him because you hoped I'd go out and do something stupid, Bobby?"

Bobby stares ahead. "When I opened the door to you and your brother after Cold Oak…" he murmurs. "Jesus. It was the worst feeling, because I knew he'd done something real bad. But seeing you both… it was the best feeling too. And when I opened the door to your brother after New Harmony, it was…" He turns then, and looks Sam straight in the eye. "I can't even begin to tell you what that was, Sam." He smiles weakly. "Seems I can preach as good as the next guy, but I don't think I could let go of your brother if I had the choice."

Sam meets his gaze. "I'm not letting go of him again if I can help it," he whispers.

"And so it goes," Bobby confirms, and for the first time Sam notices that his eyes are watery, pink and puffy. "Wheels within wheels." He stands, reaches down to Sam. "Come on. He's passed out, I need some help to get him up onto the bed."

Sam lets Bobby heave him up. "He isn't sleeping much with the nightmares, Bobby," he says ruefully. "Just a few hours at a time. Maybe we should leave him in peace. It's not like he hasn't slept on the floor before."

The old man eyes Sam, and for just a second he sees the same flash of ice he saw earlier. "The floor's hard, boy. I'd like your brother to sleep it off comfortably."

Sam follows him to the door, and just then Bobby turns. "Sam," he says. "What you said in there. I know it just poured out, and that you didn't think. But you mind me when I say this, son. If I ever again hear you say your brother _gave in_ to thirty years of torture that we can't even begin to imagine, so help me I will knock you into next year. Is that clear?"

Sam swallows. "Yes sir."


	7. The Devil Inside

Dean dreams about his black-eyed demon doppelganger taunting him about what he's going to become, clicking his fingers at him; gasps himself awake on the searing memory of what he _did_ become. As he claws his way to full consciousness he knows he's near hysteria, and he holds his breath, wills himself still and quiet as he sighs out sickly, sobbing terror.

Bobby is splayed out on the other bed, dead to the world, and Dean feels warm bulk on his other side, his brother snoring, arms and legs outflung carelessly, Sam sleeping in the star position just like he always did when they were kids. He can't help the chill of frigid shock he always gets in those first few moments of not-quite-alert if his brother's sleeping up close and personal, that memory of Bender engulfing him with his sheer mass. _Hell was worse_ , the voice in his head reminds him.

He eases himself out from under the sprawled limbs, butt-shuffles down to the end of the bed, rubs his face, and his hands are shaking. He blames it on the chill in the room, reaches for his clothes, piled haphazardly on the floor. "Fuckin' undressed me again," he murmurs, as he checks the clock, and _Christ_ , he's slept sixteen hours.

He eases up and pads to the bathroom, pushes the door closed behind him before he flicks on the light, like he does every time he has that dream. He leans into the mirror to check his eyes. Still green, the whites bloodshot, and he blinks dazed relief at his ghost-white reflection for a minute, examines his nose in profile before he pulls on his jeans.

Back in the room, Dean flips the laptop open, pulls up the history, the faces, skims through the police report. He stares for a few seconds at Sam's folder then, clicks it open. And for a second he hovers the cursor over them, folders within folders, research, exorcisms, spells, _Lilith_ , and he wonders where his brother might hide the evidence of how the fuck he can gank Hell's finest without breaking a sweat when he nearly had an aneurysm taking on Samhain. He opens them up one by one, just documents, too many to check, and he doesn't even want to look, really, doesn't want to see.

Journal.

 _Dear fuckin' diary, today I used my demon powers and screwed my demon girlfriend while demons made my brother scream my name in Hell_.

It's password protected, Dean notes. _Could be nothing. Could be something_.

He senses he's being watched a few seconds before Bobby sits up, and he surreptitiously closes it all up again and gets the fuck out of Dodge.

"You really should have told me, son," Bobby murmurs.

"What? That I was one of those black-eyed monsters we hunt?" Dean says quietly.

"You know, the fewer people know that the easier it is just to pretend it never happened."

"But you know by now that holding things inside like you do isn't good for you, boy," Bobby says, reproachful now. "Dean. Didn't you trust me? Did you think I might – do something?"

Dean honestly never has thought that, and he gets up, plants his ass on the bed next to the old man so they're sitting knee to knee. "No, I never have thought that, Bobby," he says, before he goes on, not even sure what he's going to say. As it is, the words come out, more easy than he ever thought they would, fuelled by guilt and regret. "Here it is. All my adult life I hunted that yellow-eyed bastard, and he played us. First my dad, then me and Sam. All my life I knew what was right and I never thought I would ever make the wrong choice. And I did, I chose, chose that, chose to get off the rack, chose to—"

"God help you, boy," Bobby chokes. "God help you if you thought you had any choice in the matter. Dean, for God's sake. I don't want to hear guilt from you over this, never. There was no choice. You hear me? There was no choice."

Dean's own voice breaks then, on hazy memories of things he never wants to see in his mind's eye. "But what I did. If you knew. What I did, you'd—"

"It don't matter to me, Dean." Bobby reaches out, grips the back of Dean's neck, shakes him gently. "An angel pulled you out of there. An _angel_. To fight for these seals, yeah, but they chose _you_ , Dean. Out of all those souls in the Pit. That's got to mean something… forgiveness, or redemption, or righteousness, or something."

 _Righteousness_ , and Dean can hear Alastair's sing-song voice, and it sends icicles straight through his heart. "It's funny you should say that, Bobby," he whispers. "About righteousness, because—"

"What are you doing?"

Sam, surging frowsily up off the bed, looking from Dean to the laptop, still open on the table. Sam's laptop, and Dean can see his brother's eyes flitting back and forth from him to the computer, can see the gears clanking in Sam's head, can see something like panic in his gaze.

 _It must have been something after all_ , he thinks, and there is no real surprise in the realization. "I was looking over the case," he covers. "Duluth. Hudak's werewolf."

Sam sniffs. "Possible werewolf. I still think it could be Lilith."

There's something dismissive in it, derisive, and it raises Dean's hackles in a way he can't help. "I guess it could be," he says, a little curt. "I guess this could be going on all over the lower forty-eight, Sam, since these United States must be home to eleventy-thousand thirty-year-old guys who vaguely resemble me. I mean, I assume you've checked this isn't just one cluster? Because if she's doing this a city at a time, I'll have died of old age before she finds me."

His brother tenses even more. "We can't keep running from her, Dean," he says, as he sits up. "Seals are falling all the damn time, where is the urgency? Just because you…" He trails off, exhales hard. "It could be her," he reiterates then. "This is an opportunity."

It's the same aggression Dean heard in his brother's voice before, and he's suddenly cautious, scrubs at his head, opens his mouth to reply even though he doesn't really know what to say because to be honest he expected an apology for the fact his blood-soaked, ash-filthy, sulfur-stinking laundry was aired when he least needed it. And right at the minute that occurs to him, he thinks, _what the fuck_ , and says so before he can put the brakes on. "Yeah, Sam, I'm okay. Thanks for asking."

But it's like he never even spoke, words are tumbling out of Sam. "Can Castiel do some reconnaissance or something down there? I spoke with Ruby and she says she can't track Lilith, so she can't tell if it's her in Duluth or not."

The same distaste he always feels at the mention of the demon's name brings acid to Dean's throat, but his brother is up and pacing now, adrenaline flowing, seems wired. He tries anyway. "So what, we just tru—"

"Ruby says she's heard there's only one seal left," Sam jumps in. "Jesus, if this is Lilith, we could get her."

Bobby must have read Dean's mind, because his voice rings out firm, cool and rational even as Dean's own misgivings threaten to burst out of him harsh and antagonistic.

"How do you know you can really trust Ruby?"

Sam whips around, brows coming down as the old man continues.

"She was in Hell wasn't she? Courtesy of Lilith? Don't it seem a tad odd she just let her walk out?"

The reply is sharp. "Christ, Bobby, don't you start. She helped you fix the Colt for God's sake. She's been helping me track Lilith since a few weeks after Dean—" Sam stops, shoots Dean a look that might be considerate. "After it went down," he goes on, and his tone slopes down into something more conciliatory. "She's on our side. She helped us with Anna when Castiel would have ganked her, remember? And the hexbags, she gave us the hexbags that are cloaking us from Lilith."

 _Hexbags_. It's a barbed reminder of the fact his brother wears the supercharged angel-proof version when he's with Ruby, and Dean surreptitiously lays his hand on his thigh because his leg is doing that jiggling up-and-down thing it does when he's nervous.

Sam's staring right at him now, and he gets a heavy lurch in his gut because it's one thing to be half asleep and spooked by his brother's size because some lunatic raped him three years ago in this dimension and then his ass was fucked raw by every demon who cared to join the line in the pit for forty years, but now he's wide awake he should know Sam isn't Lee Bender. And he damn well isn't Alastair and his buddies. But Sam's looming right over him, and Dean flips to what Azazel said about demon blood being better than mother's milk for growing big strong kids, fixes on it even though poor dim Andy Gallagher was five six if that, and he faces up to the fact his kid brother suddenly intimidates him. And he thinks he won't ever admit to the thrill of fear deep down inside, or the resignation that follows hot on its heels.

"Are you even wearing yours?"

It's back to barely civil, fuckin' petulant in fact, and Dean stalls. "Wearing mine? My what?"

"Your hexbag," Sam snaps, face twisting.

Dean doesn't need to be fluent in bitchfacery to know what that one meant, and he fishes the hexbag out from under his tee, raises his eyebrows. "Since you asked so nicely, Sammy," he replies thinly.

His brother frowns. "But Ruby could…" he starts, and then he stops, looks down at Dean with more calculation that he likes. "Make us new ones," he continues. "She said they expire. We'll need new ones for Duluth, just until—"

"Wait a minute, Sam," Bobby cuts in, and he's looking back and forth between them, his voice still controlled and calm. "This is a longshot, granted, but if there's even a snowball's chance this is Lilith then maybe walking into her trap isn't the best idea, it's like…" He flaps his hands. "Public enemy number one picknicking outside the J Edgar Hoover building."

Dean can almost feel the crackle of adrenaline bursting out of Sam in response, and he can't help himself, he blurts it out. "Are you high? Sam? Because I know the signs, and you're jumping out of your damn skin. Did you take something?"

Sam looks at him and for a second his face is shocked before he blanks it out. "No, I haven't, Dean. You know I don't do that," he says, and he's bringing himself back down again, voice is all patience, composed. He sits back down on the other bed, and his size is manageable again. "All I'm saying is that – this is a chance. To maybe end this, to stop the final seal from—"

"If your friend Ruby's right," Bobby says, and he's nodding slowly, sucking his cheek, like he's considering it seriously, but even so, Dean has a feeling he's putting it on, lulling Sam. "About this being the final seal, I mean," Bobby adds, and then he glances at Dean. "What's your angel said about that?"

 _Dammit, maybe not playing Sam after all_. "He doesn't say anything," Dean mutters. "He says they don't tell him much. Seems like it's need-to-know."

And Sam's in there again, that edge of frustration returning. "But don't _we_ need to know? They expect us to help guard these damn things. Shouldn't we be in the loop? I'm telling you Dean…" Sam is shaking his head, scowling. "This stinks like a dead fish, this whole thing. I don't think they know what's going on, that's why they aren't telling us. But this… this could be something, could be a lead. We could get her. We could get her, Dean."

Dean stares back at Sam, thinks dog with a bone again, thinks of those scary fuckin' seagulls in that movie about birds pecking people to death, and his brother's persistence stabs bloody holes in him just like their beaks would; thinks of the Terminator crawling through that machine press and wonders briefly if he should just flick the switch that brings it all down to flatten Terminator Sam, who never gives up. He leans on his leg and feels it tremble under his hand, and there is Bobby next to him again, barked out and utterly decisive.

"No. No, Sam."

Dean can see his brother stiffen as the old man continues. "Dean isn't going to Duluth. Like Kathleen says, this is likely something else, and it might not even be supernatural. Jesus. We know how cracked in the head humans can be. I'll go. Your brother heads home. As a precaution. And once I'm sure it isn't—"

"I'm going too," Sam grates out. "So is Dean. As a precaution. In case it is her."

Bobby doesn't explode, in fact Dean thinks his tone is fatherly exasperation more than anything, because all Bobby sees is Sam's concern, Bobby doesn't know what Sam's been doing, how he can hulk out and kill demon upper management with a flick of his wrist and a clench of his hand. Bobby doesn't know why Sam thinks he's the only one who can take Lilith on, doesn't know why it can't ever be Sam who confronts her.

"Sam, it doesn't make sense for your brother to go," the old man says. "Like I said, it's a longshot. But if it is her, I don't want him in the same state as her, let alone walking right into any trap she might have set up for him."

"But we can get her," Sam persists. "Christ, Bobby, don't you see?" He stabs a finger at Dean. "He has to come… we need him there to bait our own trap. If he's with us, she's more likely to show herself. I can keep him safe. We can do this."

"No, Sam."

Bobby's shoulders are squaring and Dean can see his patience is dwindling, he's almost as rigid and taut as Sam now, getting more twitchy and annoyed by the second. "You and me can check it out together while Dean heads back to the yard. It'll just take a day or so and then if it's a garden-variety fugly, Dean can head on over to help take it out if it looks like a big job."

"It's the end of the world Bobby. We need to see the bigger picture, see beyond keeping out of this because we don't have the guts to go down fighting."

Dean sits and watches the territorial pissing, listens to them plan it all out. The tremor in his leg is fighting its way up past his hips, he feels cold with dread, his tongue swells thick inside his mouth, and his throat is still sore. _Too much fuckin' talking_ , he thinks, when he's supposed to be on voice rest. "I'm going, Bobby," he says dully. And then he gets up, hauls his duffel up from the floor, starts ramming clothes into it. "It could be her."

Bobby stops mid-sentence, and his face creases in confusion. "Dean… just in case it is her don't you think it'd be wise to—"

"You don't understand," Dean mutters. "I have to go. If it's her… it has to be me. It has to be me who does it. Who stops her, stops _it_. I'm the only one who can."


	8. World Leader Pretend

Dean starts packing like he's sinking his fists into something, maybe even someone; wonders abstractedly if staying in Hell would have been any worse than this miserable half-chance at a redo that has him headed for that express elevator ride back down to the basement once he's fulfilled his side of the bargain.

He's only vaguely aware of movement behind him, but in the next second Sam is swinging him round, and he's up in Dean's face and demanding.

"What do you mean by that?"

For a second Dean gets this odd feeling, like Sam is pissed off, like he hasn't paused for long enough to think what facing Lilith actually entails because he's pissed that this isn't his gig; and maybe Sam confirms it with his next sentence.

"What makes you so special, Dean?"

Dean sees Bobby palm his face at that, shake his head behind his hand. The old man mutters, "Jesus, Sam," turns and walks over to sit down at the table.

Dean shakes Sam's hand off his arm, and his brother is looking from him to Bobby, bewildered, throwing up his hands. "What? What did I say? I just – why? Why is it you? Why spec—"

"Special," Dean snorts, nodding for emphasis. "Special. You're asking what makes me so special it has to be me that goes up against one of the monsters who tortured me down there, with no weapons, and no fuckin' chance."

He looks back down to his duffel, then across to the nightstand, reaches over for the Jack and stuffs it down in there, tucks a tee over it because he's damned if he's having it smash in transit, and his voice is so ragged he can barely choke out the words. "And you think it's all about being special. Sam, I can tell you it doesn't make me feel special. It makes me feel fuckin' terrified. But you can go on thinking how special it all is if you want to."

Sam's mouth opens and closes a few times and his expression is puzzled. "No…" he says then. "I didn't mean – special… God, Dean, that's not what I meant. I meant… _specific_. I meant—"

"Seriously, Sam?" Dean counters. "You seriously expect me to believe you're having trouble finding the right words to say exactly what's on your mind? College boy? I thought you were the smarter hunter."

His brother is gaping at him. "Dean… stop. I don't – I mean, why does it have to be you specifically? Why you, why not me? Why not us? You and me, _together_?"

Sam's voice trails off, shoulders slumping as he stares back at Dean, and it's like the clock spins backward because it's Sammy, it's his brother gazing at him earnestly and telling him, _I'm going to save you_ , and they're shrouded in dead silence for a minute until Bobby clears his throat.

"Dean. Who said it has to be you?"

It breaks the spell and Dean's eyes flick away from his brother's. He rubs at his brow. "Cas. He said—"

"How do you know he's telling the truth, Dean?"

It's like some sort of Pavlov's dogs thing, as Sam switches it back on at the sound of the angel's name, this _vibe_ , and for a second Sam seems to shoot up a few more inches, even get wider across the shoulders. Dean thinks it makes his brother seem overwhelming, almost threatening, and it brings back memories of _down there_ , and the tricks Alastair used, the illusions of loved ones holding him down and wielding the knives.

"Well?" Sam prods, and he's suddenly assertive again, belligerent even.

It's happening too often and Dean has had enough of it. "Because Cas doesn't lie to me, Sam," he answers quietly, pointedly, and he stands his ground even as his brother looms, stony-faced, lets it hang in the air like the veiled accusation it is until Bobby coughs again and continues on himself.

"Well, when he said you especially, Dean… I mean, _specifically_." He shoots Sam a look. "Did he mean you alone? By yourself, I mean, with no help?"

"He didn't say." Dean retrieves a fabric ball that turns out to be his brother's hoodie, thinks, _fuck it, he can freeze_ , tugs it on and glances at his wristwatch. "We should be hitting the road. We're a ways from Duluth. Sam, you packed?"

"Slow down, Dean," Bobby grouses. "So there could be other people in the room, potentially? Like, for example, me and your brother, holding her down while you do the actual ganking? So she doesn't send you into the light?"

And Dean thinks, _I'm not going into the light Bobby, I'm going into the dark. I'm going back downstairs to rot in the Pit for eternity, because it's damnation without relief and that doesn't just mean there are no toilets in Hell_. He doesn't say it. "I guess," he responds instead. "I didn't ask him if—"

"Well maybe you should," the old man returns, his voice is tight, worried. "Maybe you shouldn't be taking what this guy says at face value, Dean, maybe you should be considering that he might have an agenda of his own."

There is a second when an odd wave of defensiveness, _protectiveness_ even, rears up inside Dean, and, "He's an angel of the fuckin' Lord, Bobby," he barks, regretting it instantly as his raw throat protests. "And he pulled me out of there," he husks more modestly then. "Do you even know what that means? To _me_?" He sidetracks, maybe on purpose, he doesn't really know. "Christ, my throat is killing me. I need to gargle. Maybe you should show Cas some respect. Some gratitude. And anyway, I wasn't exactly at the top of my game when he told me." He stalks into the bathroom, shakes a couple of aspirin into a glass of water, twirls the liquid around, sticks his head around the doorjamb. "Sam. Why the hell won't these dissolve?"

"They aren't soluble, Dean, you'll need to grind them up," his brother snaps back, _Snappy fucking McSnappington and his famous snapping trick_ , and then Sam makes a dismissive noise and sits down. "He told you it had to be you at the hospital, didn't he?" he guesses balefully. "Castiel. When I was… out getting coffee. Bastard. I knew you'd been crying when I got back. I knew there was something wrong."

"Christ, Sam," Dean grates, because his throat is really hurting now, _on fire, like in Hell, on fire from screaming through shredded vocal cords_. "Leave some of my manly pride intact, will you? You may think I'm a gutless coward, but that wasn't why I was—"

"Jesus wept." Bobby shoots to his feet along to the scrape of his chair, slams his hand down on the table. "Stop this now. What the hell is going on with you two? You're both as tense as a priest in a brothel, and _no_!" He points at Sam before he can cut in. "No. I'm saying my piece, boy. You shut up and listen."

 _Not doing this_ , Dean thinks. He tips the glass into the can, pills and all, hefts his duffel off the bed. "We need to get moving," he announces matter-of-factly as he strides for the door, but Bobby steps in front of it.

"You too, boy."

The old man shoots daggers at Dean with his eyes, and he glances over at his brother reflexively. Sam goggles at him, grimaces, and it might be the first time Dean has felt genuine camaraderie with his brother since before Bedford. It makes him think of how they used to stand stoic together, shoulder to shoulder, in the face of a John Winchester smackdown, makes him think of how they used to have each other's backs.

"I know what you were going to say, Sam," the old man thunders on. "Feed me some crap about this demon and what happened to your brother. But no. Categorically, _no_. This is something else that's been going on for weeks." He stands there, looking between them both, eyebrows sky-high. "Well?"

Dean hears his voice like he's standing outside himself, a mechanical monotone. "It doesn't matter."

Bobby snorts. "Well that's a relief. Since the end is nigh and all. Don't you think you boys should be keeping that in mind? And maybe quitting your bellyaching about whatever the hell has your panties in a bunch?" He sits down heavily on the bed, pulls off his cap, scratches his head. "Now. Let's figure this out, figure out a way to proceed. Did he say why?"

"Why?" Dean echoes the old man faintly, even tries to field it. "Who? Did who say why what?"

Bobby rolls his eyes. "Keep up, son. Your angel. Did he say why it has to be you? Because it seems to me that if he expects you to go up against this—"

"Because I started it. That's why."

Dean doesn't even mean to say it, because in his mind he quite clearly heard himself say, _nope, no clue, let's hit the road_ , so he can only assume all of that took a sharp right at the top of his throat and got bogged down in the earwax Cas diagnosed in his deaf ear. He finds he's imagining the words, earwax like quicksand sucking them down and maybe _nope_ manages to spread itself out on top and inch across the top of the earwax and makes it to solid ground. And for maybe a fraction of a second there's a chance for nope to squeeze out of his mouth just ahead of _because-I-started-it-that's-why_ ; but hot damn, nope is a hero, turns around and starts throwing branches back at the rest of them, trying to haul them out of there, and _no_ and _clue_ might even look like they're climbing out of there too. Not that it matters, he thinks dispiritedly, since he's already let this red hot flaming cat with cans tied to its tail out of the bag and—

"Started it?" Bobby is fazed, looks over at Sam, who shakes his head and throws up his hands.

"You're going have to give me more, son," the old man says then. "Started what? And what the hell is with the _earwax_?"

"I'm deaf on one side, Bobby," Dean mutters desperately. "I think it's upward migration of the condylar head, but Cas thinks it's earwax. And it's my fault. I started it. I destroyed the world."

In that moment, Dean feels wasted by it, feels it hit him again with his own acknowledgment, feels week at the knees. He drops his duffel on the floor, puts out his hands for balance, sits down heavily on the chair Bobby vacated, and now his brother is leaning in, kneeling down. Sam puts his big hands on Dean's knees, and now his voice isn't pursuing Dean in anger, it's coaxing him, _Sammy the Dean whisperer_ , and if Dean looks up he knows he'll see his brother is using the puppy dog eyes on him, like before, but he doesn't look up.

"Dean. What does that mean?"

"It's my fault," he mutters. "Daddy's little girl broke in thirty." Almost by rote he finds he's rubbing at his brow, leaning into his hand and it's somehow soothing, pressing hard on his skin, back and forth with his fingers as he talks. "And it was written that the first seal will be broken when a righteous man sheds blood in Hell." He heard it once and it's branded on his brain, Alastair's brand. "I gave in, Sam. And when I gave in, I broke the first seal. I started it. And Cas says the one who started it is the one who has to finish it."

He feels his Sam's hands tighten on his thighs, dig in for a second.

"Dean. Look at me."

Dean looks up, knows he'll see scorn, contempt, derision, knows he deserves it. But instead he sees his brother.

"I never again want to hear you say you gave into thirty years of torture, Dean," Sam says steadily. "Never. It wasn't your fault. And I don't give a damn what Castiel says, I don't want you going up against Lilith alone. I won't let you. I'm not doing New Harmony again. _Ever_. And I don't care what the angel says."

Dean should be comforted, he knows, but he isn't. He just doesn't know if it's because his brother promised to save him before and didn't or if it's because of the hard edge of anger in Sam's voice, the sense that he's taking control, that he's handing out orders, that any concern he may feel, is because he's pissed at Castiel's nerve. Or if it's because it's so plain in his eyes and his tone that his brother thinks he's stronger than the angel now.

  
It's snowing when Hudak sees the girl, trip-trapping up west twenty-first as far as the sauna, where she pauses, starts to push the door open, and then steps back and paces up and down outside for a few minutes.

Hudak pulls over to the curb, honks her horn and rolls down the window, and the kid picks her way carefully over the ice and peers in, wearing that same insolent, knowing expression she had painted on her features before.

"You pickin' me up, lady cop?" she says, making her voice low and husky. "You like a little girl-on-girl action, maybe?"

Hudak rolls her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous… Mel? Was it? Get in."

The kid hesitates for a second, shrugs, pulls open the door and drops into the seat. She's shivering and her features are pinched, wan, lips blue with cold.

"What the hell are you doing out at five in the morning in weather like this?" Hudak snaps. "Is it really worth freezing to death to put out in some back alley for the sake of forty bucks?"

"Well," the girl considers. "Yeah, as it happens. When you don't have forty bucks and you feel like eating. It's damn well worth it."

Hudak jerks her head towards the sauna. "I wouldn't. I have it on good authority that little operation won't be around for much longer. It's going down, and not in the way you're used to. You don't want to be working out of there when it happens."

The girl nods slowly, raises an eyebrow. "Well thank you ma'am. I guess now I can blackmail you for tipping me off, huh?"

Hudak chuckles. "Well, you can try, kid. You can try." She pulls out. "It's five below. Where can I drop you?"

"West side. I can make my way from there."

Hudak drives, muses that it's strangely companionable and desperately sad at the same time. "You seem like a smart kid," she says on that thought. "Why the hell are you living like this?"

"I like the hours," the girl snipes back. "Even the people ain't too bad. I'm a people person."

She's rubbing her hands together and they're skinny, knuckles bony, fingertips pure white and bloodless. Hudak reaches behind herself grabs at smooth leather and tugs it out. "Here. Furlined. " She tosses them over onto the girl's lap, sees her glance across.

Her reply is part-cautious, part-suspicious. "Why would you give me your furlined gloves, lady cop?"

Hudak directs an eye towards the girl's hands. "Looks like Raynaud's syndrome."

"Say what?"

"Your fingers. The cold. Makes them numb, white like that." The girl's stare stays steely-flat, and Hudak huffs. "Look. Just put the damn gloves on."

There's a second when she thinks the kid might balk, but it's there and gone in an instant and then she complies, pulling the gloves on bit by bit. Her eyes shine as she does it, as if she's enjoying tantalizing her freezing skin with the promise of warmth, torturing the remaining exposed flesh by making it wait as long as she possibly can. She shoots Hudak a look. "Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Hudak's turn. "Say what?"

"You know… the way Charlie Bucket eats the chocolate," the girl says dreamily. "He's real poor, he don't get chocolate every day like normal kids. So when he gets this chocolate bar he makes himself wait… he bites off just a little bit at a time, lets it melt on his tongue. He ain't used to it, you see. It's special. So he ekes it out, denies himself, makes himself wait. For the pleasure. The release." She looks across again. "That's how I like to do it," she says, and suddenly her voice is cold, distant. "Eke out the pleasure." And then she starts, comes back to herself. "Not that I get to eat chocolate that often."

Hudak gets an odd feeling that it isn't chocolate the kid was thinking of at all. "Seems a tad masochistic," she retorts.

The kid shrugs. "When you wait a long time for something it don't do you no good to race through it. You want to just make it last. Wring every single drop out of it." She smiles hugely. "Let it melt on your tongue. Like Charlie Bucket does."

"You like to read then," Hudak says, wincing inwardly at how lame it sounds, but for some reason she's intensely uncomfortable and she wonders if this is the kid's pickup line, isn't naïve enough to assume the girl really does only swing one way when there's money involved.

"My dad read to me," the kid says. "Every night before bed. He'd read to me while I sat on his lap."

So simple, the image of some kid snuggled up close listening to bedtime stories, but something about the girl's words, her tone, says so much more than Hudak really wants to know. She sees her iin her side vision, holding her hands up in front of her face, flexing her newly black leather-clad fingers with relish, until the soft leather squeaks. From somewhere deep down, unbidden, it flashes just briefly through her Hudak's brain, _killer's hands, black leather gloves, Dexter_ , and she shivers.

"You can drop me here," the girl announces suddenly.

Even with the atmosphere gone tense, Hudak frowns. "Are you sure? There doesn't seem to be much out here. Isn't all of this side slated for demolition?"

The girl's eyes are beady, calculating. "Not all of it," she says, and then she smiles again and maybe this time it's genuine. "Thanks for the gloves," she says. "I appreciate it. Maybe I can charge those asswipes more if I have warm hands."

She opens the door and an arctic blast blows through the interior before she slams it shut. She moves away, skinny and hunched, and before she can stop herself Hudak is reaching into her pocket, leaning on the horn for a second, two sharp bursts, until the kid appears by her window again.

"Here," Hudak tells her. "Spend it wisely."

The kid takes the fifty, staring in at her. "Why would you give me this, lady cop?" she asks. "And the twenty before? You adopting me or something? Because adoption didn't work too well for me first time round."

"I'm giving it to you because it's five below and tonight will be worse," Hudak says. "No one's going to be out looking to get laid in this weather. Stay out of it. Buy yourself a Hershey bar."

The girl snorts, wheels, minces off into the snow squall until she disappears and even though Hudak squints, she can't see where the kid is headed.

"Where the fuck am I?" she murmurs, as she u-turns and drives back towards town.


	9. Reasonable Doubt

Dean straddles the white line and pedals to the metal, drives like a force of fuckin' nature because it's out in the open now, nothing hidden, his cards are on the table and maybe he feels slightly less sick, slightly less anxious, feels maybe like a dead man walking when he hears the phone ring just before they flick the switch on the electric chair. Even if his brother is thumbing his nose at God.

"Dean. You out to break the land speed record?" Bobby says balefully from the back seat.

_Keeping an eye on me_ , Dean thinks, because Bobby is a canny old bastard, and he clearly knows damn well something's up that isn't just the looming prospect of the ground opening up and six billion souls tumbling into the outer darkness. It sparks momentary irritation in Dean, but then he flashes to Bobby's face when he opened the door all those months ago, a mix of hope and horror, joyful and repelled all at once. _You're the closest thing I have to a father_ , he remembers, and he eases up, guides her back over to the right.

"Can we turn on the heater?"

Sam grumbles his way into Dean's thoughts, reaches ahead to start fumbling with knobs, and Dean swats his hand away."No."

"It's freezing."

Dean hasn't used the heater since Hell. "I like the cold," he says. "It makes me feel… less hot."

"But it's Minnesota. In December," is the unimpressed response. "How could you possibly feel—"

"We're on I-90," Dean deflects. "We could do the Spam Museum. How about it? Anyone? Sam? We never saw it last time."

"It's thirty degrees, Dean," his brother cuts in. "If that. Can't we have the heat on?"

"Arctic air masses," Bobby chips in from the back seat.

"What?" Dean snaps back. "What about it?"

"Arctic air masses, I said," the old man continues. "There aren't any natural barriers north or northwest of Minnesota to block arctic air from pouring south. Ten coldest counties in the country are all in Minnesota."

"Punxutawney fuckin' Phil," Dean mutters under his breath.

"Readers Digest Book Club," Sam breathes back at him, and then he starts tapping his hand on his thigh. "She'll be few miles further on," he says neutrally.

_Like I give a flying fuck_ , Dean thinks viciously, and he has a glorious five-second fantasy of skidding on black ice and plowing into the bitch, remembers she was damn well hurting after Alastair had at her and maybe he can tear off his own strip by turning her meatsuit into roadkill, even though all it means is that some other poor sap will be sucking in her hellfumes within ten minutes of him braking sharply and bleating out fake apologies to Sam while his brother peels her off the blacktop, flat as a paper doll. _Like Flat Stanley_ , he sniggers inwardly. Flat Ruby, and he can buy a camera and take snapshots of her propped up against all the local landmarks as they cross the lower forty-eight. _Here's Flat Ruby visiting the Biggest Skillet in the South. And here she is again, posing next to the Second Largest Ball of Twine in the West_. Fuck it, might as well take her to the Spam Museum since it's close by. And Dean remembers how she hopped sideways into the maid at that motel, wonders idly if Sam would still be as fascinated by her if the only meatsuit within reach was some fat, tightly-permed, middle-aged nutjob cat lady from Missouri.

Bobby still isn't happy about the plan, Dean can feel the old man's doubt buzzing at him from the back seat, tiny popcorn kernels of annoyance carefully aimed by the kids three rows behind, bouncing off the back of his head right at the good part of the movie, and the old man chooses that precise second to say so.

"I still don't like this, Dean."

With a sigh, Dean responds, "I know, Bobby. I heard you the first twenty times."

Not put off, Bobby reiterates,"It doesn't make sense."

"What does in this whole mess?" Sam offers.

"You tried calling your angel?" Bobby fishes.

Dean shakes his head at that one. "Calling him? Like, on the phone? These guys don't carry cells, Bobby."

"Idjit," the old man snaps. "I mean – calling him. In your head. Like… praying, I guess."

"Praying?" Dean barks it out, half-amused, half-appalled, because for a second he's looking at a splinter of his mind's eye that he leaves buried deep, a clear image of himself kneeling down in his all-in-one PJs with the built-in feet and the button flap at the back in case he needed to take a dump during the night, and his hands are clasped and he's saying his prayers, and a voice is saying them along with him. The voice always comes from behind, and he never turns his head because he was four and never knew he needed to keep looking, never take his eyes off her, because soon she would be gone.

"I don't think these guys come when they're called," he says finally. "I mean… he's off fighting somewhere I guess. He isn't up there watching over me. Is he?" He raises his eyes up almost involuntarily, can't help wondering if the dude is sitting cross-legged on a cloud, strumming a harp, and whether he'd keep the trenchcoat on for that.

"He's your guardian angel," Bobby says archly. "How the heck would I know how these things work?"

Dean shrugs. "He generally just turns up. Flap, flap. Not like chickens or anything. Really big flap flaps. Not loud, just… heavyweight. Like a really big – bird. But not the muppet."

"Ostrich?" Bobby says, and he sounds genuinely intrigued. "No, those have small wings. Swan? Condor?"

"More like something from one of those old Ray Harryhausen movies, or Jurassic Park," Sam chips in. "One of those prehistoric birds with the big leather wings."

"But he has feathers. He showed me," Dean supplies, and it's possessive almost, like he's ring-fencing his angel, maybe like he's doing some territorial pissing of his own because if Sam gets to have his pet demon maybe he damn well gets to have his pet angel and be the only one who sees his feathers. "Well, sort of. It was more like the shadow of them. Hell of a wingspan, must've been about—"

"She's just up there," his brother cuts in and points, and there she is, parked off the road, scenic view, sitting on the hood of her car.

Dean pulls up about ten feet away, keeping his distance because the smell of the Pit emanates from her, Charnel no 5, and he wonders if she can smell where he's been too.

Bobby is on him faster than a rat up a drainpipe the minute his brother slams the door.

"What is going on with you and him? And don't tell me it's nothing, boy, because you're walking on eggshells round each other. Is this the Iowa thing? The siren? Because if it is you need to—"

"It isn't the siren, Bobby," Dean starts, and then he stumbles to a halt, turns around in his seat. "Well. It is. I guess. But it's other things. _Her_."

"Ruby?" The old man quirks an eyebrow. "You don't trust her."

"Do you?" Dean clips back.

Bobby snorts. "Not exactly. I don't really know what to make of her, if truth be told. But. Like Sam said – she helped us fix the colt, gave you those hexbags."

"You need to figure out how to make the hexbags," Dean grouses. "Then she'll be surplus to requirements."

"Well now she's giving you new ones, I'll take a look at the old ones and figure them out," Bobby concedes. "Though there's likely spellwork involved, so it'll take some time."

Dean nods, flicking a glance out to his brother, deep in conversation with the demon. Ruby is smiling up at Sam and she looks so damn normal, pretty brunette, not Sam's type at all, more Dean's, and isn't that ironic. He studies the way Sam gazes down at her, like he's entranced, like he's eating her up with his eyes, thinks about what Castiel told him, what Sam did to Alastair. "Bobby… do you believe that theory about immutability?" he asks.

"That some things aren't capable of change?" Bobby answers. "Meaning her?"

Dean bites at his lip. "I guess. She started out as a witch and ended up as a demon. I don't see how she can be good. Can things that are evil at the core turn good? And she came from Hell… how can anything that crawls out of Hell be good?"

"Some things that crawl out of Hell are good, Dean," the old man says, his voice gone strained.

When Dean looks back, Bobby has an odd, tight expression on his face. "What things?" Dean prods. "Tell me one good thing that crawled out of that place that was—"

"You," Bobby says, and he clucks his tongue impatiently. "Idjit. _You_."

It makes Dean think of the angel, his eyes so wide and earnest. "Cas said that."

"Then it must be right, him being a man of God and all," Bobby says decisively. "In any case, maybe good isn't even the point, maybe it doesn't have to be what motivates her. Maybe she's like Meg and she just doesn't want Hell on Earth. I mean…" The old man jerks his head in her direction. "Look at her. Living the life, snazzy little sports car. I can see Armageddon cramping her style. Maybe it's self-interest that has her helping you boys, but that doesn't mean you should turn down the help. God knows you need it."

Dean snorts. "I don't like her. She makes Sam different… something's different about him. _Off_. He's – I don't know how to describe it."

"Well I do," Bobby snaps. "Arrogant, aggressive, in your face. Damn well snotty if you ask me."

Finding he can manage a wry smile, Dean says, "Don't sugarcoat it, Bobby."

The old man huffs. "Anyhoo. Might be nothing to do with her. You know…" He stops, sighs out.

"What?"

"The thing about you being back is that it means it could all happen again," Bobby says bluntly. "When you were gone it was over. And as… as awful, and I mean _fuckin' awful_ as it was to think about what was happening to you – well, it was done, finished. Nothing we could do. But now. It could happen again. And I know damn well I couldn't deal if it did, Dean. So. How must your brother feel about it…?"

Dean lets it hang in the air for a minute or two before he replies. "Well, he has her, doesn't he? Doesn't seem like it took him long to take up with her after she got out. And all this worry for my health seems to fizzle away to nothing when it comes to staking me out for Lilith, huh?"

Maybe Bobby doesn't want to touch that one with a bargepole because he skirts around it. "You know I'd rather you weren't on this trip," he says. He eyes Dean suspiciously then. "This thing with her. Well. She was down there at the same time as you."

It makes a chill run up and down Dean's spine, makes his throat go dry. "Yeah. She was."

"Did she… uh. Was she—did she…?"

"I had my eyes closed," Dean whispers. "I had my eyes closed. When I had my eyes."

He's lying, because he didn't have his eyes closed all the time, didn't have them closed when the voice was familiar, when it whispered in his ear, _I made it Dean, I'm here to get you out_ , when he stared in disbelief and wept with joy, before the face smiled, _this is what I'm going to become… this is what I want to become_ , and the hands roamed up and down his torn flesh and made him scream again. _Once more with feeling, Dean…_

"Jesus. Dean. Son, I just—"

"I don't know," Dean cuts the old man off desperately. "I don't know if she did, Bobby. But I know she's one of them. And… well. _Immutability_."

Sam is heading back now, his usual shuffling walk, hands stuffed in his pockets, and Ruby stands in the background, jacket open to the weather. Dean finds himself wondering if maybe she doesn't like the heat either, because she comes from the same place he does, and he shudders. And then he thinks about what he really meant when he opened his big mouth to Bobby about immutability.

Can things that are good at the core turn evil?

Sam must have dozed off, because he jerks awake to find himself staring at his brother's back.

Dean is perched on the end of the bed, stock still, glued to the television, channel surfing, back and forth, the Food Network, a slasher movie judging by the screams, then Animal Planet, where a couple of mangy lions are taking down a wildebeest and the doomed creature's struggles are curiously serene and graceful in slow-motion, completely silent. Then the Food Network again, steak sizzling on the grill, rare, hands slamming handfuls of ground meat down onto a butcher's block, pounding glistening pink muscle and gristle into hamburger patties, slasher movie, knife flashes, blood sprays out, _arterial spray_ , and Sam winces, can't stomach that now. And on to Animal Planet, teeth and claws ripping, raw, bloody, stringy muscle, kittycat faces dipped in blood, slasher movie, eyeballs pop, Food Network, _sizzle-pop_ , slasher movie, _screaming_ , Animal Planet, _intestines dragged out_ , and faster, faster, images flashing in and out, and something isn't right.

"Dean," Sam says.

Faster, faster, faster.

Sam crawls past his brother, off the bed, glances at the fixed stare, switches off the set. "Dean," he tries again.

Dean still stares at the blank screen, at his reflection. "Tongues," he murmurs distantly. "My signature was tongues. So I wouldn't have to hear them beg."

Sam feels his guts cramp and curl. "Dean," he says. "I shouldn't have said that. It just came out, I. Don't know what came over me."

Dean looks up then, smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes. "You sure about that, Sam?" he says softly. "You sure it isn't the company you've been keeping? Fell in with a bad crowd… She's jerking your chain. I know it."

The fact Dean is talking and not throwing punches isn't exactly a relief. As he sits down, Sam briefly considers the irony that sometimes where his brother is concerned a right hook and a slammed door might just be easier, because he only talks when he has to, and when he reaches the point where he has to, it's usually more than either of them can handle. But talk he will, if it'll help. "What you said, back in Shoshoni, about how it was you Yellow Eyes really wanted. It was so you'd break the seal."

Dean nods. "Looks that way. Ole Yeller was a man with a plan."

"When I tried to deal for you," Sam starts, and he sees a muscle twitch in his brother's cheek as Dean looks away but he keeps going. "When I tried to deal, the crossroads demon said they had you right where they wanted you. And it just, it didn't – _register_. But I still don't get it, Dean. Why you?"

Dean shoots his eyes up at that, and they're forming narrow green slits. "You mean why am I so _special_?" he snaps.

Sam throws up his hands. "Well, yeah. In a way. I guess. But not like you think. Or _thought_. It's just that all along we thought they wanted me. So. Why you?"

After a shrug, Dean says, "Had to be a righteous man, apparently." He snorts. "Who'd have thunk. Me, righteous. Even Cas believes it. But he don't know me that well, huh?"

"Well," Sam ventures, and he's careful, apologetic. "It is a reach. But… it's not as if you're… you know. Bad. Unrighteous." Like me, he thinks. _Cain and Abel_.

Dean's voice goes thin. "Alastair said he thought it was supposed to be dad."

It's like the air is sucked out of the room and Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, confused. "Wait a minute," he says feebly. "Are you saying that—"

"Yep," his brother grates out. "Hundred years on the rack. Old man looked good on it, huh? On account of the fact he never broke."

Somewhere beyond the horror whirling around inside his head, _dad_ , Sam finds words. "Demons lie," he says, and it hangs there for a minute and his brother doesn't acknowledge it. "Dad wasn't what you might term righteous either," Sam adds.

Dean sniffs, a little derisive. "I guess. The angels sure as damn didn't spend forty years down there fighting off demons to look for him. Far as I know, anyhoo."

"I doubt he could have held out that long," Sam responds carefully, because he knows the wound has never really healed for Dean like it has for him. "And anyway, he'd never have walked out like he did if he was on the rack. I think Alastair was messing with your head. I mean… he would. Wouldn't he?"

Dean snickers, but it's hollow. "Yeah. He'd mess with my head alright." He gives Sam a sidelong glance. "You ever think about it? After dad died?"

"No… I shut it out, I guess," Sam replies, and he's shutting it out even as he says the words, because it's done, dusted, home and hosed, and he wants to come out the other side of this conversation with his lasting memory of John Winchester still his dad's smile before he walked into the light. "Dad – _died_. He just died. That's what I told myself. And when we figured out he made the deal, I never wanted to think about what came after." Sam bites his lip at the memory of his brother's desolation back then, and he knows what the answer will be even before he asks the question. "Did you think about it?"

"All the time," Dean whispers. "All the damn time. Different for me I guess, since it was my fault."

"It wasn't your fault Dean," Sam counters sharply. "It was dad's choice."

"Like it was my choice," his brother breathes out. "So you could have a second chance."

Sam knows where this is going. "Maybe this is my second chance," he says softly. "Maybe this was always how my second chance was supposed to go, Dean, maybe it's a second chance to keep you out of Hell, because if you—"

"You figured it out, I see," Dean says, edgy now, and his expression is more alert to match.

Sam sighs. "Well? Has Castiel said anything? About the deal still being on the table?"

"Nope, he hasn't said a word," his brother replies. "Either way."

"So you have actually asked him?" Sam fishes.

The answer is noncommittal. "Sort of."

Sam doesn't give up. "What does that mean?"

Dean grimaces. "I hinted. He didn't take the bait."

Exasperated, Sam pushes some more."Well, why don't you just, you know – _ask_ him?"

"Maybe I don't want to know the answer," Dean snaps. "Ever think of that? Maybe I'd like to hang on to the hope I might rest in peace next time."

Sam taps his hand on the table, feels a sudden cresting irritation at his brother's apathy. "What you said, about how it has to be you who stops Lilith. I don't suppose Cas has any big ideas for how you're going to do that without getting yourself killed?"

Dean flops abruptly backwards onto the bed, arms outstretched. "No. He does not."

"Does he know anything?" Sam says, knowing he sounds churlish. "Does he do anything except flap in from nowhere to practice his growly voice on us? Is he even—"

"He's just a grunt, Sam." Dean yawns, rubs at his eyes. "He's out of the loop."

Sam offers what he thinks is the obvious. "So what good is he then?"

"I like him," Dean replies, and then, more meaningfully, "I trust him."

The subtext is clear as day. "I trust her," Sam says quietly. "She hasn't steered me wrong yet."

Dean shoots bolt upright and his face is tense. "She's a demon, Sam. She's done nothing but steer you wrong."

Bristling, Sam pushes back. "But you know why I—"

"Yeah, and I get it, I really do, Sam," his brother cuts in. "But I didn't ask you to pull a fuckin' Anakin trying to get me out of there, and I—"

"I didn't ask you to make the fucking deal in the first place, Dean," Sam barks back, his voice rising, his fingers snatching at the air. "It was stupid. And it was selfish. And it—"

"Was so much more than that," Dean says. "And if you don't know that… Jesus." He shakes his head, spins and reaches to grab the car keys from the table before striding to the door, and Sam pushes up to follow.

"Dean – wait a minute, where are you going?"

"Out."

"Are you going to get drunk somewhere?"

Dean stops at the door, sags against it, oddly still, and his voice is wrecked. "Down there," he says. "They—they… _enjoyed_ me, Sam. Down there. I'm not giving you any more details than I already have, because Jesus, look how that turned out. But they fuckin' _enjoyed_ me. And then they _turned_ me… turned me into something… _else_. And now I'm going back. _Fuck_."

He turns, and his features are softer, somehow younger. "I need for you to stop," he says quietly. "Stop what you're doing with her. Because you know it isn't right, Sam, because you know it came from something unholy, and it's changing you. Because Cas said they'll stop you if I don't, or if you don't stop yourself. But most of all because I don't want you becoming what I became down there. I never want to see black eyes looking back at me from your face."

It swells up inside Sam, anger and hurt. "I had to do what I did, Dean," he grates out. "I was desperate. You don't know what it was like. You died. And I had to—"

"And _you_ died," his brother hisses. "Don't you fuckin' dare tell me I don't know what it was like, Sam. You aren't the only one who smelled his brother rotting. I was desperate too. So don't you fuckin' dare tell me I don't know. Or that it was selfish to want you back."

"If you could rewind all this, would you still make the deal?" Sam asks, and it comes right out of the blue, surprises him because he never intended saying it, doesn't even think he consciously thought the words before they came out.

It surprises Dean too, Sam sees him flinch. And he stares at Sam for a long moment, and his eyes are bleak, and his tone is glacial when he finally replies. "Don't ever ask me that again."

Sam hopes it's a good sign that he doesn't slam the door. "That went well," he informs the room.

Dean's bottle of Jack is all present and correct on the nightstand, the first thing he unpacked as usual, and Sam snaffles it, gulps a mouthful as he roots out his phone and speed dials. She's prompt, as she always is.

"Yeah, we're here," Sam confirms brusquely. "You got anything new?"

  
Bobby is coming out of the room next door as Dean leaves, and he waves a piece of paper.

"I tried calling Kathleen's cell again, no answer. Called the copshop and she's home sick. Tracked her down, looks like she's livin' a couple of miles outside of—"

"Thanks," Dean cuts in, plucking the paper out of the old man's hands as he stalks towards the car. "I'll tell her hi for you."

He's pulling out as Bobby starts waving and hollering, stops to buy gas and a map, flirts briefly with the tired-looking blonde checkout jockey. Twenty minutes later he's parked up on the verge, he's lost, and it's getting dark. "Jesus," he mutters, as he fumbles his flashlight out of the glovebox, squints down at the map. "Living up the ass of nowhere. What the fuck is that about."

He huffs out, stares into the dusk, tries not to dwell on what Sam asked him, because it's the one thing he hasn't let himself think about since he flicked on his Zippo and found himself in a different corner of Hell. He's scared of the answer, he knows, because whether it's yes or it's no, it'll say something profound about where he is now in his relationship with his brother. _No_ leaves him feeling sick and dizzy, because no means he has let go in some way, let go of the responsibility, the _job_ of Sam, maybe even some of the love, because no means he can see a future without Sam instead of just the muzzle of his Desert Eagle. But _yes_ … yes leaves Dean feeling sick and dizzy because yes is what Yellow Eyes said to him, yes is his pathetic, self-loathing, self-destructive desire to sacrifice himself for his family, _truth is they don't need you_ , yes is atrocity, corruption, depravity, evil, eternal damnation, yes is tongues so he doesn't have to hear them beg, and yes is the end of the world.

"How are you feeling, Dean?"

"Christ!" Dean nearly jumps out of his skin, swipes a shaking hand across his eyes. "Must you do that?"

The angel is as calm, as impassive as ever. "You are a martyr to your nerves, Dean," he says, nodding thoughtfully. "Perhaps you should try meditation."

"Don't tell me," Dean snipes. "I need a mantra."

Castiel takes up less space in shotgun than Sam, doesn't sprawl like Sam, doesn't exude tension either, might even just raise an eyebrow if Dean cranked up the music instead of bitching about the volume. He just looks over and smiles that near smile he always smiles, the barest quirk of his lips, like he doesn't know how to smile properly or maybe doesn't think it's allowed. And then his face falls serious again and for a second he seems uncomfortable, not sure how to proceed.

"Have you spoken to your brother?" he ventures finally.

"You could say that," Dean mutters.

"In point of fact, I did say that," Castiel responds, as literal as ever.

"No, that's not what I—uh. Just. Forget it. It's a saying." Dean rubs his jaw hard, slants his eyes over at the angel.

"Do you… Are you – _there_? All the time? Watching? Listening? Like – on a cloud or something?"

Castiel raises his eyebrows, appears to ponder it. "I'm… _aware_ ," he says. "Aware of your presence and whereabouts.  
But subconsciously aware. So I don't hear or see you at all times, but we are bonded and I know when you need me. Does this make sense to you, Dean?"

Dean thinks on it a minute. "Bonded. And you just get a funny feeling about me."

"Something like that."

"And you don't know what I spoke to Sam about."

Castiel shakes his head. "I wouldn't observe without your consent, Dean. But…" The angel's turn for a sidelong glance this time.

"But what?" Dean prods.

"I can try to listen. If you wish to – _talk_."

Dean snorts, almost laughs. "There is no try, Cas," he says. "There is only do. Or do not. And anyway, I don't talk." But it turns out he does, because the words are spilling out fast and furious. "Those black-eyed bastards, they killed our parents. Didn't he ever, one time, stop to think about that before he started running with their kind? Didn't he ever, _once_ , stop to think that I didn't want this, didn't want him doing this to try to save me? Fuck knows, I told him enough times. I told him two minutes before those hellhounds ripped me apart, Cas. Those things, demons, like her, maybe even her, she was down there at the same time…"

He stops for a minute, leans down into his hand and rubs hard at his brow like he's trying to wipe away the memories, if only it worked. "Maybe her," he repeats. "I don't know… and he still did it. And I'm tryin' real hard to understand why, but all I can see when I look at him is black eyes, black fuckin' empty eyes, straight out of Hell, and Alastair, he, he – used to make me see things that weren't real, weren't really there…" He looks up, across. "But. You know that," he says. "You saw."

"I saw." Noncommittal, calm. _Frustrating_.

_Fuckin' leg, tremors_.

"Cas, uh…" Dean falters for a minute before plowing on. "If you didn't need me to stop this, would you still have pulled me out of there?"

The angel's tone is neutral. "I wouldn't have been sent, Dean."

"Yeah, I guess," Dean says, and though he knows it isn't the dude's fault, he's bitter about it. "Whatthefuckever."

"I think I would be poorer for it," Castiel says suddenly, and it's like a switch flips and he's less guarded, less stilted, he's like he was in Shoshoni. "Poorer for not knowing you, Dean."

Dean smirks, finds he can't help teasing the angel. "You thinking now, Cas? Maybe even thinking for yourself?"

Castiel tilts his head, might even half-smile again, and Dean shakes his head, sighs out long and heavy, chews at his thumbnail for a minute. "Can you sense Lilith the way you can me?" he asks then. "Sense if she's in the ballpark?"

Castiel looks blank for a second before his face brightens. "The ballpark? This term was coined during the space race, yes?"

"The space race?" Dean pulls a face. "It's a baseball term, Cas."

"I believe I'm correct, Dean," Castiel replies, and Dean could swear his expression is smug. "The return from orbit being an inexact science, NASA described your nation's space rockets as having landed in the ballpark if they fell to earth within a predesignated area. And no, I can't sense Lilith."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Ballpark meaning baseball park, Cas. Can't sense her as in just can't, or can't as in she's cloaked? Like, packing a hexbag?"

"We don't know if Lilith uses hexbags to cloak herself, Dean," Castiel says patiently.

"But it's possible? She could be flying below radar?"

Castiel gives him the same level stare. "You mean the object detection system that uses electromagnetic echoes to identify the distance, altitude, position or velocity of both moving and fixed objects such as aircraft, ships—"

"The end," Dean cuts in, glancing over. "Know-all. You're like Agent Scully, only not as se…" He lets it die, pinches the bridge of his nose. "What the hell would Lilith be doing in Duluth anyway," he mutters. "Place is an epic fail."

"It's possible Lilith could be flying below radar," Castiel replies. "And who is Agent Scully?"

Dean's phone sounds, and, "Thank God," he mutters. "Saved by the bell." Bobby, and Dean flinches at the static and strains to hear. "What? What? Say again, Bobby, you're breakin' up. Bobby. Bobby? What? _Whassat_?" No signal worth spit, and he winds down the window, holds the phone up, _nada_ , and then he thinks what the hell, he might as well get it over with. "Am I going back there, Cas?" he asks bluntly, and he turns to look the angel in the eye, but the seat is empty.

"Fuckin' typical."

Another fifteen minutes and Dean is pretty sure he's driving in circles. He's about to give up and head back to town to face his brother when he spots the road, well hidden and winding, and the house is long, lowset, nestled well off the beaten track in among naked, angry looking trees that point petrified arms accusingly at him through the closing darkness. "Wuthering fuckin' depths," Dean mutters.

Her Jeep and a truck _whose?_ are snuggling close to share body heat on the driveway and Dean parks up off the track, practices what he's going to say as he trudges up the driveway, even practices what she might say, thinks a few minutes on what he might do and then smiles while he imagines what she might do. He has to give himself a mental cold shower then and he pictures his brother's bitchface as he rings the bell because it's the best antidote he knows to jettisoning the bombs ahead of target.

"Hey," he croaks, as the door creaks open, and music he vaguely recognizes from another lifetime floats out. He clears his throat, smiles his sunniest smile. "Hey, Kathleen. Long time no see."

"Yeah," she says distractedly, raising her hand and waving a finger vaguely. "Just… wait there. A minute. I'll be right back. Don't move."

And it's sure as shooting, Dean thinks. _There's a man here_. Hence the truck, and as he hears footsteps coming back he's already starting his apology for bothering them so late.

He hears the discharge, oddly muffled, feels the impact smack bang center of his chest, _damn, hurts_ , and he's jerked up off his feet and flying backwards, and he thinks, _just like fuckin' Rockford_ as it all goes black.


	10. Whispers from the Soul

Hudak grips not-Dean by the ankles and hauls him – _no, not him, it_ – in through the doorway over to the cast iron radiator. Her cuffs are on her belt and she unhooks them, secures him, _it_ , thinking furiously, not a spirit because the salt would have unphased it, revenant, zombie maybe, stops on the last one only because she thinks that would have amused him, _the real him_. She remembers him, _the real him_ yakking on about how _real live zombies don't lurch all over the damn place like a Romero movie, they sprint like Carl fuckin' Lewis_ , and she'd snorted out that surely being dead was a pretty serious ailment and if she couldn't jog when she had the flu then zombies shouldn't be able to sprint, you know, given the whole being dead thing and the fact it's a handicap and not a superpower.

_You think too much, Kathleen_.

Desk, drawer, index cards secured with a rubber band, and she flips through them. "Zombies can be killed by a bullet or a sharp blow to the head…" she mutters. "Kill the brain and you kill the ghoul. Jesus, that's straight out of Dawn of the Dead. And cremation is necessary to prevent them rising again." Revenant, then. "Decapitation, removal of the heart and burning." She glances over at him, _it_ , sprawled out in the corner, hisses, "You're going to ruin my carpet, you miserable bastard."

Think, think, which is it…

"Well," she muses. "I guess I can combine a sharp blow to the head with decapitation if I use the ax."

It's parked outside the back door, and she runs a thumb along the blade, smirks, but – best laid plans and all that crap, she thinks, when she walks back in to find him – _it_ – staring blearily up at her, and how dare it wear his face and stare up just like he would.

"I can't believe you fuckin' shot me again, Kathleen," he _it_ groans, rubbing at his _its_ chest. "Christ. What the hell was that about?"

"Shut it, buster," she barks. "I know damn well you'll have his memories if you're a revenant."

He _it_ goggles owlishly at her, puzzled. "Revenant…" His _its_ eyes flit distractedly over to the corner of the room, to the source of the music. "Christ, is that the fuckin' Carpenters?" And then he _it_ stares back up at her. "Why would I be a revenant, I—"

"Zombie then," Hudak snaps. "Which means that if I kill the brain I'll kill the ghoul, and don't think this is me monologuing, you evil sonofabitch, because—"

"Kathleen." His _its_ eyes are wider now, alarmed. "What the fuck is this? Why would you think I was a revenant or a zombie unless Bobby…" He _it_ stops dead, closes his _its_ eyes for a second. " _Never told you_. Bobby never told you."

"He told me it went down," Hudak says, and she hefts her ax, walks around to his _its_ left, out of reach of his _its_ legs, and wishes she'd thought to tie him _it_ up. She squints down, judges the distance and raises her arm, and he – _it-it-it-it_ , she screams inside her head, lifts his _its_ hand up in self-defense, starts babbling out a string of words.

"No, wait! Kathleen, just a minute… silver! Silver! You must have a silver knife, just cut me somewhere – just a small one, mind – if I'm a revenant it'll kill me, you know that… or call Bobby, Kathleen, God, no, don't, Cas! _Cas_!"

Hudak swings it down, puts her back into it, aims it at his _its_ skull, and there's a flash of something, cool air blowing on her face, a hand shooting out, abruptly stopping the descent. Something swings her around then, and she's staring at a dark-haired man about Dean's age, blue, _blue_ eyes, and he's reaching a hand out towards her face.

  
"I believe you may be on a tilt, Dean."

"I'm not tilting, Cas. Now shut the fuck up and play."

"If you're upset it may be best to simply quit this session."

"I said, I'm not fuckin' tilting. And I'm not upset either."

"Perhaps you need to suppress your emotions and concentrate more on the game."

"Well, maybe if you'd shut up I could do just that."

Hudak cracks her eyes, peers through a millimeter-wide gap over at zombie-Dean and the dark-haired man, sitting opposite each other, staring down at the table, occasionally looking up and staring hard at each other.

"I believe deception in poker is a frequent occurrence, Dean," the dark-haired man says. "I'm told that solid players may often try to convince an opponent they're on a tilt when they aren't. In fact, it was you who told me this."

Hudak is on the couch, a cushion under her head and a throw pulled over her, which she reckons is odd in and of itself since, by rights, zombie-Dean should have ripped into her neck by now and she should be shuffling, or maybe even racing through town like Carl Lewis. Something's wrong, she realizes. Or maybe something's right.

"Your hand is shaking, Dean. I believe it may be a tell."

"I'm not telling, Cas. Give it a rest."

"I'm told some players' hands shake when they're placing a bet if they have a very strong hand, while other players' hands shake when they're bluffing, Dean. In fact, it was you who told me this."

"My hands aren't shaking, Cas, and here are ten fuckin' Froot Loops to prove it."

"Some players act strong when they're weak and act weak when they're strong, Dean. These players will often bet aggressively by throwing a large number of Froot Loops into the pot in the hope that their show of strength will make their opponent fold."

"Fuck! Dammit! Enough!" Not-Dean, maybe-Dean, possibly-Dean, probably-Dean, flings down his cards, leaps up, winces and doubles over, clutching at his chest. "Jesus. I can't believe she shot me again. Heads will roll for this snafu. Heads will fuckin' roll."

The dark-haired man looks up, and his voice is mild. "Learning to control your emotions while playing Texas hold 'em takes much practice, Dean, but it's very important because poker is a game of information, and you should give away no more than you have to. If you're able to master this skill, your luck at the tables will most certainly improve."

Definitely-Dean is gaping at the dark-haired man now. "The fuck? I taught you to play this game and you're turning that against me? Sly sonofabitch, I bet you—"

"You really are him aren't you?" Hudak interrupts.

Dean's head snaps around. "Yes, I really am him. And no, I have no idea why Bobby didn't tell you I was – _okay_. Okay. Which I am. Though, no thanks to you."

Hudak pushes herself up, rubbing at her temples. "What the hell did your friend do to me?" she says. "My head feels like bees live in it."

"I gave you the magic finger," the dark-haired man says.

Hudak regards him for a second. "You gave me the what?"

"The magic finger," the dark-haired man repeats calmly. "Dean informs me it's similar to the famous Spock nerve pinch, which has been successfully used on humans, Vulcans, and Romulans. Once, even a horse."

Dean is nodding sagely, smiling. "In Star Trek five," he adds. "The Final Frontier. The horse, I mean. And I think it was a horse-like creature, not a _horse_ horse." He frowns then. "You'll need to buy some prunes. It binds you up. For a few days, maybe a week."

Hudak looks from him back to the dark-haired man, who stares at her, impassive.

"In reality, the famous Spock nerve pinch wouldn't have the effect that is portrayed on screen," he imparts suddenly. "Simply pinching an individual's neck in such a manner won't result in unconsciousness. Unfortunately I can shed no light on why the finger causes Dean to become constipated, but perhaps you won't experience this side effect."

Dean snorts. "And while we're on the subject, Cas, next time you give me the finger don't undress me. Capische? The clothes stay on. Even in bed. Especially in bed." He winks at Hudak. "You should see what he can do when he uses the whole hand."

Hudak stares dumbly for a minute, blinks hard. "I'm terribly confused," she murmurs. "It's time for me to stop drinking. This is clearly a sign that I've gone too far. You, both of you… aren't even here."

Smiling widely, Dean crosses to sit next to her, slaps his hand down on her thigh and squeezes it hard. "Oh, I'm here," he says, and then jerks his head over at the other guy. "But him? With him, it's one of those _he was never here_ deals."

The dark-haired man stands, walks to the door, turns, still deadpan, voice still placid. "I'll take my leave, Dean. There are seals to defend after all." And then he's gone, just like that, so fast she doesn't quite understand what happened.

"Hey," Dean is calling at thin air. "Cas, seals, you said seals. Does that mean there's more than one left still? Dammit." He seems to remember Hudak is there, casts her a glance. "Seals," he says, almost uncomfortably. "Cas is, he's – in that whole Greenpeace thing. Against seal hunting. He's – Canadian."

"I guess someone has to be," Hudak says dryly. "Now please explain to me how it is you're here and why I have spent the last six months laboring under the assumption you were growing horns and a forked tail, and twirling a trident."

Dean blanches, and something flickers across his eyes, something like hurt, and then he smiles and matches Hudak's gaze without faltering. "I never went," he says smoothly. "Sam, he found a loophole. Right at the eleventh hour."

"But Bobby called me and told me—"

"We didn't tell Bobby, not straightaway," he says brightly. "Might have put him in danger."

"But I called him," Hudak says slowly. "I assume that's why you're here."

"Yeah. He tried calling you on your cell a few times. He left a message at your office too, a couple I think. They said you were sick…" Dean pauses, frowns. "It's not your epileptic head thing, is it?"

Well, it's plausible enough, Hudak thinks, even if his eyes do look strained, even if they're shadowed underneath, even if he's a tad pale. "I lost my phone," she says. "Right after I called him, actually. And no it's not the seizures, the meds are working fine."

Dean nods but his eyes are cagey now, flickering about, and Hudak's gut tells her this is an act but she doesn't call him on it. He leans down, picks up her shotgun, smiles. "Home-made suppressor. Pretty cool. How did you—"

"It's really good to see you, Dean," Hudak says.

Dean cocks his head, puts the gun back down on the floor, shifts closer, leans in just slightly and runs the tip of his tongue along his top lip. "Uh. How good? Is it to see me, I mean?"

"Take off your tee," Hudak murmurs, and he smirks. "I'll get the first aid kit," she continues as she stands. "Your chest must be pretty sore so we should—"

"It's fine, sorted," Dean cuts in. "We patched it up while you were out." His eyes gleam up at her. "And yes, it is sore. But sex would help. I think."

Hudak rolls her eyes. "Now I definitely know it's really you."

Unearthly, brutal howling at three in the morning, and it sounds like a mangled version of twilight barking, timber wolves howling at the killing moon. Hudak falls her way out of bed, flies down the stairs four steps at a time, barrels into the TV room. The couch is empty, blankets are twisted, sheets torn, and there's a sound, pitiful moaning rising to a grinding shriek and back down again, and Dean is in the corner on his butt, hugging his legs, not saying any words, just making unintelligible sounds of dread.

And it's familiar, Hudak thinks, _Bender flashback_ , and she's over on her knees in front of him before her brain can remind her that he lashes out when he comes round. In a liquid, graceful lunge, he erupts out of the shadows, knocking the wind out of her and tumbling her flat on her back with him straddling her waist, and she sees the flash of silver and feels cold metal caress her face. The moon illuminates dead, flat features, because he isn't there, he left himself, and Hudak feels the sting of the blade on her throat, and begs for her life.

"Dean. Dean. Don't hurt me. Come back. Don't hurt me, please, please stop, don't—"

He presses his palm down hard across her mouth, leans close to her ear, and his voice is as devoid of emotion as his eyes. "Don't beg me. Don't ever beg me. Worse if you beg, worse for you. You have to be quiet while I do this or it'll be worse for you. Slower. Do you hear me? I can cut you up fast or slow. Do you hear me?"

She nods as vigorously as she can with her head pinned down by his hand, and he lifts it away, keeps whispering incoherently as he presses harder with the blade. She winces, makes a sound, and he puts a finger to her lips and soothes her. "Hush. Don't beg. Don't ever beg… just… open your mouth. No sounds…"

Hudak grabs at something floating around her brain, blurts it out. "I used a piece of three hundred pounds per square-inch pvc pipe… I got it at Lowe's plumbing department… rubber and plastic discs, soft wood washers, Dean, listen to me, it's important. You need something to absorb the heat, disperse it… I used a six-inch long aluminum tube, _ow_ … Jesus, please stop, no!" Red hot pain flares under Hudak's chin and she grips his wrist, stares up, but his face is still set. "I'm not begging, Dean, honest," she babbles. "The internal diameter needs to be as close to the bullet size as possible and you drill holes in it, same size as the bullets, a quarter inch from the end and a quarter inch from each other…"

Dean is tilting his head, staring down at her, eyes narrowed. "It's a trick," he murmurs.

"No, Dean, not a trick," she soothes. "Remember? You asked me about it, about the suppressor. I cut the disks out of a plastic trash can and an old tire, I used a hole saw… for the wooden washers too, and I used particle board for those – and steel plugs, you need steel plugs, I got them at a local auto shop, and—"

"It's another trick," Dean says. "He never used you before." Abruptly he jerks backwards and off of Hudak, scuttles into the corner, and she takes a deep breath, yomps as quickly as she can to the fireplace, grabs the poker while Dean mutters to himself from the shadows.

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio, infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica…"

"Dean," Hudak dares.

His voice races faster, breathless, frantic, "Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis, humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt… Vade, Satana… inventor et magister omnis fallaciae… _please. Please, God_. Vade, Satana. Vade, Satana…"

Hudak sees his jacket balled on the floor, forces herself to ignore the sick feeling in her belly, crawls over to it, fishes out his cellphone and scrolls down. It takes a few seconds before the voice croaks down the line at her.

"Sam? It's Kathleen Hudak. Yes, I know what time it is. Dean is here with me – yeah, whatever, but I need you here _stat_. Okay… you got a pen? Oh, you do? Yeah, it's a half-hour drive."

She snaps the cell closed, shivers, because now Dean is watching her, and he's quiet for a few seconds before he sighs out, rests his brow on his knees.

"It's over," he whispers. "I'm – back."

Hudak isn't letting go of her poker just yet. "Where were you?" she pushes.

"You don't want to know," he replies, and he sounds defeated, resigned.

"Yes. I do," Hudak says more sharply, and damned well insistently. "I do want to know, Dean, because you nearly cut my throat just then and I—"

"Believe me," he says, and when he looks up his eyes are black pools in the dim light. "You really don't."

And suddenly it's so clear and Hudak's mouth is thick with claggy saliva, and she feels bile burn the back of her throat. "You were lying," she breathes. "Before… you were lying when you said Sam broke the deal." She pushes up slowly, carefully, no sudden movements, backs over to the doorway. "What are you?" she challenges. "What the fuck kind of monster are you, and why are you here?"

Dean is part-hidden behind the couch now and his voice is faint. "I'm me. I'm _me_. I'm not a—not, just _not_. I just. It seemed like you couldn't see it. Earlier today…"

"See what?" Hudak stays poised to rabbit, eyeing the shotgun where he left it earlier, thinking there's holy water in the kitchen and she didn't try that on him. "Couldn't see what?"

"See _Hell_ ," Dean says wearily. "I'm so tired of people looking at me and seeing Hell, Kathleen. It didn't happen at first… not until I remembered. And then it was in my eyes all the time, and I could see it in the mirror, and everyone could see it. But it seemed like you couldn't see it… it seemed like you could see _me_. Once you figured out I wasn't a zombie anyway. So. I lied. I just wanted you to keep seeing me, I guess."

Hudak stands, doesn't move any closer, doesn't run either.

"I'm not a demon, Kathleen," Dean says, soft and honest. "I couldn't say the exorcism rite if I was."

Hudak considers that for a minute, snorts. "You never even used to know it. You had it written on an index card and laminated."

After a humorless chuckle, Dean says, "I learned it before I left. I figured I might need it."

"Did it work?"

Dean is silent for a long moment before he clears his throat. "No. Not down there."

Hudak bites her lip, rubs at her head, then flips the phone open. "Sam, Kathleen again. It's okay, he's okay. Bad dream. He's fine… yes, I think so."

Sam is terse in response, barks out a reply, _I've been calling him for fucking hours_ , and Hudak makes a face at the phone. "Well don't kill the messenger, talk to him about it. No, I can handle it… Okay… About nine? Okay, see you then." She huffs annoyance as she snaps the cell closed again. "What the hell got into him? Anyway he's pretty pissed off, says he left some messages…"

"Boo hoo," Dean grouses back, but there's no venom there, he sounds drained.

Hudak sighs, long and heavy. "You know, I thought you were having a Bender flashback."

"Bender?" he mocks. "Bender was _practice_. Bender was foreplay. If there's one thing I got over down in the Pit, it's Lee Bender, believe me."

Tentative, because she isn't really sure she wants an answer, Hudak fishes. "What was it like?"

"It was what you'd imagine it might be, Kathleen. And more." Dean laughs suddenly, brutally. "It brought a whole new meaning to the phrase being on fire for the Lord."

Hudak flicks on the lamp, crosses over to where he's sitting, legs splayed out now, and she squats down. "You're bleeding."

He nods. "Yeah, that. I sort of – didn't really want you seeing that. On account of this."

He pulls the tee off over his head and Hudak gapes at smooth, unmarked, unscarred skin, _new_ skin, unblemished apart from the speckled bloody spatters and pinprick bruises the rock salt crystals left behind. And something else.

"What the hell is that?" she blurts out, gesturing at Dean's shoulder.

"Oh. Handprint." Dean shrugs, colors. "Thing is… Castiel, he—"

"Canadian magic finger Greenpeace guy?"

"Yeah. Uh. He's not actually Canadian. He pulled me out. Of Hell."

Closes her eyes, Hudak shakes her head hard, feels a momentary stab of sadness at the fact that seeing him in one piece, himself, living, breathing, is firecracker and ticker tape parade stuff, but even though it's so right she wants to draw him close and weep with relief, it's so damn _wrong_ that some part of her is terrified. "How? With a spell?" she ventures. "Dark magic? Blood sacrifice? And how come him, and not Sam or Bobby?"

"No… uh. With his hand. Literally. It kind of… burned into my skin. With – celestial power, I guess. Or something like that. He calls it _grace_. He's…" Dean trails off, frowns, seems a tad embarrassed if anything. "You see… he's an angel. Of the Lord."

"An angel," Hudak echoes.

"Of the Lord," Dean says again, nodding. "Because, what do you know, it turns out there is a God."

Hudak makes her voice sound conversational even if it wants to wobble and veer through octaves, because even screaming at the top of her lungs is going to be the fucking understatement of the year. "I'm an agnostic, Dean," she says, shuffling over to lean next to him. "Do you realize what this means for me?"

Dean stares at her, a gormless, clueless look that turns into mild alarm as she pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs deeply.

"It means that I believe the existence of God remains to be proven. It's a great way for me to rationalize not praying, and not going to Mass on Sundays like my mom and dad did, while not actually committing to saying there is no God. I see not committing as a loophole that should hopefully save me from eternal damnation. And now you're telling me this guy – who, by the way, I thought you might possibly be… _you know_ – is an angel of the Lord. Which means I have no excuse now."

They sit there shoulder to shoulder for a long, quiet moment.

"Eternal damnation is no laughing matter," Dean observes then.

"I know – don't forget, I was married," Hudak retorts. She twists, reaches up, pulls a blanket off the couch and waves the fabric at him. "You're shivering."

Dean shrugs. "It's. I'm not cold. It just takes a while to calm down."

Hudak drapes it over her own legs. "You know, if I was an atheist I'd be royally shafted," she says then. "As it is, I'm lucky I didn't commit, but now I'm in deep shit for assuming you were screwing an angel. Of the Lord." She glances across at him. "So he – what, _restored_ you? To a new version of your old body?"

Dean nods. "Yep, pristine. Picked up the odd mark in the last couple of months, but apart from the handprint and the tattoo, my hide's like a baby's ass. I'm not even circumcised any more."

Hudak feels her eyebrows shoot up reflexively. "Really?"

"Yeah, you wanna see?"

"God." Hudak looks up at the ceiling as she says it, raises a conciliatory hand. "Sorry, God."

"Did you really think me and him were… _that_?" Dean detours suddenly, and he sounds vaguely scandalized with a dash of thrilled fascination bubbling underneath.

"Two good-looking guys, the magic finger, the whole hand, the way he stared at you. It was like he wanted to rip your clothes off and…" Hudak fakes seriousness as she nods. "You need to watch who you tell about him giving you the finger, Dean, because it will never come out right. _Never_. What is the magic finger anyway?"

"It really is like the Spock nerve pinch," Dean says. "He just taps you with it and it can put you out, send you back in time. It's pretty awesome. Except for the constipation. The whole hand is for exorcisms."

"I can't believe we're having this conversation," Hudak marvels, and she knows that it will hit her hard in the cold light of day. "But remember that movie about fallen angels exiled to Wisconsin? Well. Does he have… you know. A centurion outfit on under the clothes? And wings?"

"I'm not going anywhere near the centurion outfit," Dean deadpans. "But he has wings, yeah. They're invisible."

"Of course they are," Hudal murmurs. "I should have known." She sinks her head into her hands. "This can't be," she says. "He looks like a—"

"Tax accountant. I know. The body's a vessel. Some – _guy_. Apparently he's devout and prayed for it, so that makes it okay." He clears his throat, sounds nervous maybe. "He's been a really good friend to me. He was there with me. He's the only one who really _knows_."

Something occurs to Hudak as he speaks, and she looks up and across at him sharply. "Why would an angel raise you from Hell? I mean – it's not as if you don't deserve it or anything, but why you?"

Dean waits a beat before he speaks, but he's hesitant. He's lying, maybe, Hudak thinks.

"The demon who held the deal… Lilith, her name was. She's pretty influential, as demons go. They pulled me out to kill her. Seems there's like some sort of cosmic symmetry that means only I can do it. It's complicated. And Sam's got it in his head this killer of yours is her."

Hudak stares at him for a minute. "Because all the victims look like you," she breathes. "So she's trying to get you first, hoping she'll get the right one along the way."

He nods.

"I guess it's possible," she muses doubtfully. "Seems like a longshot, though. Do you think it's her?"

Scratching at his head, Dean sighs. "I don't know. I'm just along for the ride these days."

"I think this calls for a drink," Hudak says suddenly, twsiting around to slide a hand under one of the couch cushions. Dean raises a quizzical eyebrow as she retrieves a half-empty quart bottle.

"It's convenient," she blusters as she flops back down beside him. "Sometimes I like a sip when I'm watching TV."

"Bobby took to drink after I died," Dean says offhandedly.

Hudak spits out her mouthful of the liquor, partly because of what she thinks he might be implying and partly because of what he actually said. "I haven't taken to drink, Dean," she replies, knows her tone is defensive, maybe a dead giveaway in fact. "You died," she continues, less sharply. "Jesus. I never really thought about that bit."

"I don't think about it myself if I can help it," he says. "And I don't think you have to worry about taking the Lord's name in vain, Kathleen. He hasn't – smitten? Smited? Smote? Smat? Me yet."

Hudak passes him the bottle and he gulps down a mouthful. "I think smited might be grammatically correct, but I like smat better," she says, and she glances sideways at him. "So. Bobby and Sam must have been pretty happy to see you."

Dean cackles. "They both tried to gank me too." He nods, bites his lip. "Sam," he says. "He saw it go down. It was…" He closes his eyes, shivers. "It was pretty bad. Like I said. I don't think about it if I can help it. But Sam took it real bad, got set on this revenge kick, like – Deathwish or something. And he's… was. Is, I guess, still pretty traumatized."

"But he's got you back now…" Hudak nudges his knee with hers.

"Yeah. But, uh… it hasn't been that easy," he mutters. "Not as easy as you'd think. I mean – at first it was fine. But it's like he, I don't know. Resents me, or something. Like I'm in the way of this fuckin' revenge quest of his."

"You don't want revenge?" Hudak knows she sounds surprised, doesn't bother to hide it.

Dean's voice is infinitely weary when he replies. "I just want to move on. It's over, no point in dwelling on it. I got out. Can't we just – get on with our lives? I just. Wish I could. Wish he'd let go of it."

"Do you have the dreams every night?"

"Pretty much." Dean shrugs. "Once, twice maybe. Sometimes if I can drink enough they aren't so bad. The booze muffles them so I sleep through the worst of it. I can get noisy, but I stay asleep."

"So you're drinking heavily again."

Pulling a face, Dean grouses, "Don't you start. I need it to sleep."

"What does Sam do when you have the nightmares?" Hudak prods.

"He rolls over, generally." He sees her look, continues swiftly. "It's best to just leave me to it. I just come out the other side and no one gets hurt." He nudges her knee this time. "It's important, Kathleen," he says, and his voice is colder. "If it happens again, you need to keep your distance. That was… that was too close. If I hurt you… well. I just don't want to do that."

Hudak doesn't let it lie. "What do you dream about?"

Dean studies her for a minute, smiles, but it's guarded, doesn't reach his eyes. "I'm never going to tell you that," he says quietly, seriously, and he shakes his head. "Never."

"Will you dream again tonight?"

Dean looks across and out the window, waves a hand in that direction. "Dawn's coming," he says. "I think it'll be okay. Maybe I'll just doze here for a while. If you hear anything, just stay upstairs. I'm used to it." He smiles again. "You look tired," he says, and he reaches out a hand, brushes hair back off her face. "Go back to sleep."

Hudak screws the cap back on the bottle, pushes up, looks down at him for a second and then across at the couch. "Come on," she says, and reaches down. "The bed's more comfortable."


	11. Feel Better Dead

Dean glances up from tapping industriously away at a battered looking laptop as Hudak ushers Sam into her dining room.

"It's a cluster," he says, with a businesslike jerk of his head towards a messy spill of files and a map spread out over the table, and he uses his socked foot to push out the chair next to him. "A cluster, as in it's all Duluth," he continues. "This isn't her, Sam. I'm telling you, man, you're barking up the wrong tree. This is territorial, a werewolf or something, maybe a skinwalker."

Sam hasn't slept for worry, feels damned testy, and he squints at the laptop, stabs at the screen with a finger. "It's still possible she could—"

"Jesus, I'm too sober for this," his brother growls out. "Like I said before, if this was her, it wouldn't just be Duluth, Sam. This is the only place it's happening." He flops back in his seat, frustrated. "Come on, see sense. It's some serial nutjob or a fugly. It isn't Lilith."

"Why the hell are you so keen to dismiss this, Dean?" Sam barks back, exasperated, and he wonders if maybe his brother does this on purpose, twists the needle deeper. "I'm sure there's more to this than you think, and even Ruby…" He stops, sees the spark of irritation in Dean's eyes. "Even Ruby reckons it could be her," he continues more quietly, stops, looks up and smiles tightly as Hudak places a steaming cup of coffee in front of him.

"She knows," Dean says. "About Castiel. And about how you think this might be Lilith."

Sam nods, gets the message loud and clear: Hudak doesn't know it's the end of the world. He gets back on his bike and keeps pedaling. "Dean. Ruby says Lilith wants you back. She can't find you because of the hexbag. Ruby says she isn't beyond pulling some tricks to force your hand."

"Cas says he doesn't think she's here."

"She could be hiding herself."

There's an awkward silence as they fume at each other, and then Hudak pulls out a chair. "Ruby, this is your demon girlfriend?" she asks through a smirk, as she sits down. "Do tell, Sam. I want details."

Sam scowls back at her. "Thanks, Dean."

Dean shrugs dismissively. "So I spilled," he snipes. "Not as if you've got any secrets from Ruby, is it Sam?"

Sam knows Dean doesn't _know_ , that he just threw that out there, but he bites down his retort because Dean is right, and because it suddenly prickles uncomfortably across his shoulders, the fact that he ratted his brother's tearful confession out to the demon while they were in bed. And for the first time it suddenly occurs to him that while Ruby was pulling him close and rubbing his back and crooning words of comfort in his ear as he sobbed out his rage and despair, his brother was sitting by himself in a motel room quietly and resolutely getting drunk without the solace of company.

He jolts out of his reflection when Hudak starts tapping her pen rhythmically on the table.

"Look," she says. "I get that something has your panties in a bunch, both of you. Dean says tomato, Sam says tomahto. But this is how I see it. It might be this Lilith, it might not. It might be a werewolf, it might be a garden-variety lunatic. But we're still going to try and draw this thing out, and end it if it's supernatural. So why don't we just work out a plan of action for that, because that has to come first doesn't it? The rest is academic at this point."

Dean stares at Sam for a long moment, huffs out a sigh, and when he speaks again he's calm, tactful. "I still think it's a longshot. But I guess she could be doing this a city at a time, and Cas said it's possible she could be cloaked. So, Sam… you got anything?"

Sam feels the nudge of his brother's foot against his, and he pours it all into his eyes, his gratitude, and he sees his Dean's eyes soften in return, sees a faint smile curl his lips. "Seems like whatever this thing is, it'll show its face for guys who look like you," he says.

Dean sees where he's going with it, and nods. "So – we put me out there, with you guys close by shadowing me, and we—"

"And if it is this Lilith, what then?" Hudak interjects suddenly. "Could she grab you without us knowing? Is she like our Canadian friend, can she just beam in?"

Dean leans in towards Sam, confidential. "She means Cas. Long story."

Sam finds he can smile. "No she can't do that… we have hexbags, so she can't pinpoint us. And it may not be her doing the grabbing, she could have her drones doing it… but they'll have to actually see him."

Dean stares at Sam, and a muscle jumps in his cheek.

"If it's her," Sam concedes.

Dean nods, barely. "Maybe I should leave the hexbag off," he offers. "If it is her, that'll be the quickest way to draw her out."

That thought has been skipping around the outside reaches of Sam's mind, tempting him, whispering in his ear that the fastest way to get that bitch would be to dangle Dean in front of her, defenseless, like balled-up newspaper tied to a string and trailed just out of reach of her sharp claws until the second she pounced and still the idea dances along, just ahead of his acknowledgment of the risk they'll be taking if Dean is unprotected in this. "I don't think that's a good idea," he says eventually, reluctantly, and the thought curses and stamps its foot. "We can't take that risk… they found the other guys easy enough. If she's behind this they'll find you, but it'll be easier to deal with her drones than with her."

Dean quirks his eyebrows. "It'd be the fastest way to be sure. I mean it, uh. It could be her. I guess."

And again, it's Dean meeting him halfway despite his doubt, and Sam shakes his head. "We can't take that risk Dean. This way is the best way to maybe grab one of her people, find out where she's hiding. Wear the hexbag… one of the new ones."

Hudak is rifling through the papers on the table as they speak, and she pulls out a sketch and puts it down in front of Sam. "This is the drone she just used if it is her," she says. "If it isn't her, then I guess this is the perp. He was seen picking up the latest victim in the red light district, down near the docks."

Sam studies it, furrows his brow. "I'm sure I know this guy. I just can't place him, but I know him from somewhere."

Dean snorts out brief, mirthless laughter. "You do indeed, Sammy. Tattooine. It's Jabba the Hutt."

Hudak nods in confirmation. "Pretty much. That's how the eyewitness described him. Hooker, young kid. Says she tried to pick the victim up herself but this guy got in there first."

"Any point in us talking to her?" Sam asks.

Hudak pulls a face. "I don't know. She's a pretty slippery customer…" She trails off, and her eyes drift up and down him speculatively, appreciatively, to the extent he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, and then she smiles slyly. "Of course she might be a tad more responsive if you ask her."

Dean yawns, stretches. "Think I'll hit the shower," he says, pushing up. "I guess I'll be cruising the streets at some point?"

Hudak sniffs, considers. "We're staking out some of the sleazier districts… Sam can come with, I can say he's an FBI ridealong. I assume you can hack into their database and get a backdated request in the system to cover my back, just in case someone asks questions?"

Nodding, Dean raps back, "Yes ma'am. Consider it done."

After sighing, Hudak goes on. "You're problematic because your rap sheet turned up in a search for lookalikes. It's okay – I think it will be anyway, since you're officially dead. But it means we need to keep you under wraps, only put you out there when I'm on shift and pulling a stint."

Dean huffs. "Well, when will that be?"

"Tonight, in fact," she returns quietly. "Lucky break, huh?"

  
Sam sits and reads through files after his brother shuffles up the hallway, but he can feel Hudak watching him and he gives in. "What?"

"It must have been – awful," she says, soft. "I know that feeling. But to be there. To see it."

Sam knows what she's talking about, knows instantly. There's a sudden lump in his throat and he swallows thickly.

"It's natural to want – revenge," she ventures, cautious, careful. "But it might mean you aren't seeing things clearly."

Sam stares back at her for a long moment as he considers the platitude. "My sight is crystal clear," he says levelly. "I want to destroy her for what she did. For how he suffered. An if I can, I will."

"Because you feel guilty," Hudak observes. "He went there for you. But I don't think he wants revenge."

"He doesn't know what it was like," Sam snaps, and she sucks in a hiss of breath and gapes at him. "No, you don't know what I mean," he follows up, before pausing to sort his words into something coherent even while his rage suddenly simmers hot. "I know he was the one who was down there. But to know he went for me, that he suffered for me." _That he wasted himself_ , he thinks, but he doesn't say it.

Hudak chews her bottom lip."He's pretty spooked by you being so close to this Ruby."

Sam shrugs. "I never meant to be. She was there. When I needed her."

"When he wasn't."

"Yes."

"But he's here now. Isn't that enough?"

Sam doesn't know how much he can say given his brother's veiled message that he kept the apocalypse out of whatever he told the woman. "Lilith is out there," he says finally. "It means he isn't safe. She wants him dead, Kathleen. She wants him back down there." He taps his fingers on the table. "So no. It isn't enough," he adds, and he has no idea where the abrupt surge of bitterness and the edge to his voice come from. "And here's the thing – if I had been torn to shreds by hellhounds while he was forced to watch, if I had gone to Hell… Dean would be out for revenge too. So I don't see where he gets off taking the moral high ground."

Hudak raises an eyebrow. "I didn't say anything about moral high ground, Sam, and I didn't get the impression Dean was taking it either," she says sharply. "It seems to me that he really does want to try to put it behind him."

Sam snorts. "He can't. Look, I can't be explicit, because he hasn't told you everything. But this isn't something he can hide from. We aren't running this show."

"Hence the whole touched by an angel thing?" Hudak fishes.

Leaning back in his chair, Sam shields his cheeks with his hands. "I have to – we have to – take Lilith out, and if this is her, then it's as good a time as any," he answers her. "And if it isn't – well, we just deal with whatever is out there. And then keep at this. He's scared, and I don't blame him. But he has to man up, Kathleen. That's just how it has to be, and it's nothing to do with me pushing him… it's out of our hands." He realizes his voice has risen by a few decibels, that his tone is so intense it's fervent, and that Hudak is eyeing him suspiciously.

"You're different," she says, and her voice is curious, questioning. "Harder. You didn't even ask how he was. After the nightmare. You didn't even ask how I was."

"I'm used to his nightmares," Sam shoots back bluntly, and he sees her eyes widen slightly. "Look, I'm sorry if I seem cold, but this is bigger than you can possibly imagine. It's too much, actually. And I don't deal with it like Dean does, I don't repress it, and deny it, and run from it to hide in a bottle. This is how I deal with it. I get angry. And it works for me."

"It doesn't seem to be working for Dean," Hudak pushes.

"If it keeps him alive, it's working for both of us," Sam retorts, and he thinks it's time to damn well change the subject. "So," he continues smoothly. "I take it you met Castiel. How did that go?" He can see her expression flicker, knows she knows he's deliberately steering her now, and maybe the conversation was getting too dicey for her too, because she goes with it.

"It was a trip," she admits with a slight grin.

"A trip?" Sam echoes her. "That's not what generally springs to mind with Castiel."

"He gave me the magic finger," she says. "And I came round to see them playing poker for Froot Loops. And there was a conversation about Spock, and constipation." She doesn't miss Sam's dramatic eye roll. "Maybe I'm just seeing the softer side of Castiel," she suggests. "Is he Dean's guardian angel?"

And then Hudak doesn't miss what Sam knows is a bitchface, thinks might even be a grimace of sheer revulsion.

"He seems to care about Dean," she ventures, more tentative.

"Yeah," Sam mutters, and he knows he sounds petulant. "He's got plans for Dean alright."

Dean jerks awake to Alastair's pillow talk like he always does, his teeth gnawing the back of his hand and the fabric under his head soaked with his tears and sweat.

He hears the sound of laughter from outside, blinks at his wristwatch, close to four in the afternoon and Sam still isn't back from scaring the town hookers. He rubs his eyes, _gritty_ because he's still exhausted. He thinks abstractedly that it might take years to catch up on his lost sleep, years he doesn't have.

Noise again, the crashing sound of garbage cans sent flying, and Dean rockets off the bed by reflex, crouches down on the floor, his heart racing and his eyes drawn to the salt line he sprinkled in front of the motel room door as he stumbled tiredly through it before flopping on the bed. It's every which way, haphazard and gappy, and he grabs his brother's pack, digs feverishly through it for the salt drum, crabs over and lays a true line of white. Once done, Dean breathes out his panic and disorientation for a long few moments, then rams his hands in his hip pockets as he rises, so that he won't have to feel them shake.

He backs over to the bed, sits down heavily, and stares at nothing until he focuses on his brother's jacket, hanging on the chair. He reaches over to snag it, slips his fingers into the inside pocket. Hexbags, the new ones, and somewhere Sam might be concealing one that's angel-proof. He eases them out gingerly, like they might bite him, studies them, bites his lip. _If I knew where the other one was I could walk_ , he thinks. _I could take it and walk. Lilith would never find me, and Cas wouldn't either_. And fuck the demon hordes, fuck the angels, fuck the seals, fuck the six billion, because at least he'd have company if the devil sent the world to Hell. As opposed to lonely torture in perpetuity.

"I don't want to do this," he breathes. "I don't want to go back."

He stares at the small fabric pouches, thinks about the extra-crunchy version, his salvation even if it means damnation for the rest of mankind. "Please," he whispers. "Take this cup from me." And Christ, what a fuckin' idjit it makes him, spouting words he doesn't believe in from a book he still thinks is fiction, when he knows no one is listening, and he knows he can't duck this one, it's his and his alone to fix.

The noise outside is louder, a clamor, and something slams against the door, Dean yelps before he can bite the sound back, nearly jumps out of his skin. _Kids, outside. Not demons_. He pants his way back to something approaching calm, steels himself to walk to the window and peer out into the parking lot. "Little brats," he mutters, frowning as the football bounces too close to his baby for comfort, and he hammers on the window before he can stop himself. "Jesus," he admonishes himself then. "I'm turnin' into my own grandpa."

A half-hour later there's still no sign of his brother and Dean has worked himself up to a decent warm glow playing viciously intense crush-the-carrier in the parking lot with a bunch of four-foot high grade-schoolers who run him off his feet and tackle him with aplomb, so that by the time he catches sight of Bobby leaning up against the doorjamb of the motel room, he's buried under a mountain of hooting, howling Children of the Corn. He cries uncle, shakes them loose one by one as he stumbles over to the old man, filthy, bruised, grazed, and limping.

"Enjoying yourself?" Bobby inquires dryly. "Your nose is bleeding. Not the smartest thing you ever did a week after getting the shit kicked out of you, boy."

Dean wipes his face with the back of his hand and it comes away bloody. He smiles. "S'all relative, Bobby. These days I aspire to just a broken nose." He calls back as he heads into the room. "And it was fun. I deserve some fun." He strips off his shirt, groans as he stretches, and reaches for his bottle to gulp a mouthful before offering it over.

Bobby takes a swig, studies Dean with knowing eyes. "How did you sleep last night?"

"Like a baby," Dean returns blandly, as he toes off his boots. "Woke up every two hours crying for the breast, and took a dump at oh-dark-thirty." He pulls his tee over his head, and Bobby grimaces.

"What the hell happened?"

"Kathleen shot me."

The old man gapes. "Why the heck did she do that?"

"Same reason you tried to gut me when I first showed up," Dean tells him, peering down at his red-peppered skin. "She thought I was a revenant or a zombie. Being as you never told her I was alive."

Bobby flushes. "Yeah, that. I tried to warn you but you took off like a bat out of hell." He sighs. "It, uh. Wasn't easy. You know that. Lot of stuff slipped my mind back then."

Dean nods, pulls out a clean tee from his backpack. "Yeah, I got that," he says. "It can't happen next time, Bobby. You need to keep on top of things after it goes down this time, because—"

"Just – stop. Right there." Bobby snaps it out, raising up his hand like he's trying to hold something off. "Nothing's going down, Dean. We're all three of us in this, and like your brother says, we can do this together. So. Nothing's going down. Not on my watch."

Smiling, Dean shakes his head, and he feels strangely serene though doesn't know why. "Bobby, I'm the one. I'm the one who has to do it. I don't have a clue how, but you and Sam aren't in the equation as far as Cas is concerned."

Bobby splutters in frustration. "Who the fuck put him in charge?" he finally says, and he rubs at his beard. "What the hell does it matter what he says?"

Dean chuckles humorlessly. "Well. It is the word of God."

The old man takes his cap off, fists it nervously, sits down on the bed. "Dean," he broaches. "Sam told me what you said. About how you think you're going back." He looks up and his face is white, his eyes bleak. "I'm not about to let that happen, son. Neither is Sam. Now I know you have issues about what he's doing with Ruby, but—"

It amazes Dean how it can still hit so hard, that feeling of betrayal, even though it doesn't really matter in the scheme and he knows without a fraction of a doubt that Bobby means well and will never let him down. "What exactly do you know about what he's doing with Ruby?" he snaps. "Did you know all along? Even when I was down there? Did you let him go because you knew he'd—"

Bobby's expression darkens. "No, I damn well did not. Don't forget, boy. I wanted to burn you."

Dean stares down at the old man, spins and snatches up the Jack again, hands it over as he wipes his mouth. "You know she's got him using his shining. Using it to gank demons."

Bobby takes another slug. "I didn't know for sure. But I had a feeling it might be something more than just bumping uglies."

"You know it's a slippery slope," Dean challenges.

"Maybe he can handle it."

"He can't. And I can't believe I'm hearing this. From you."

Bobby crashes his fist down on the table and his voice is harsh. "Well, the fuckin' alternative don't bear thinking about, boy."

"What is the alternative, Bobby?" Dean slices back.

Bobby's fist is still clenched on the table. "Going back," he says, quieter now. He shakes his head. "I'm not sitting for that, and neither is your brother. And I don't care what it—"

"Does to him?" Dean cuts in sharply. "Is this you making a choice, Bobby? Between me and him?" He stares at Bobby, and he can read him like an open book, as the old man's eyes flick down and away and a muscle jumps in his cheek.

After a few beats of tense silence, Dean sits down opposite, leans forward onto his knees. "This is my responsibility," he says, softer now. "Cas says it has to be me or the world ends. And Sam, I know he has good intentions but what he's doing, it's all wrong." He had to suppress the shiver that runs through him as he thinks of the arctic chill he sees in his brother's eyes, the barely concealed irritation that emanates from Sam. "You said it yourself, he's mad as a cut snake a lot of the time. He's fuckin' arrogant. It's changing him, it'll destroy him. I know how it works, Bobby. And so help me, I'm not about to let that happen to my brother. Jesus, I went to the Pit so it wouldn't."

The old man looks down at his boots and his voice is faint. "But you said he's been doing good with it. Exorcising demons."

Dean huffs out derision. "I said he was using it to gank demons. I didn't say it was a good thing." He has to pause again, to quell the twist in his guts. "Christ knows, it didn't do me much good when I was downstairs."

Bobby looks up, quizzical. "You're going to have to elaborate, boy, because I don't see the conflict."

"Okay," Dean says, and who knows, maybe getting it out there, spilling this as well as everything else might help him. "But you aren't going to like it." His mouth gone suddenly dry, he takes a mouthful of whiskey before he continues. "Just before the deal came due, we caught this one demon in a devil's trap and Sammy got it in his head to give this guy the ninth degree, maybe find out something about Lilith. He didn't know anything. Obviously. And Sam sent him back the good old-fashioned way, and while he was doing it, this guy spat out all he was going do to me once I joined him down there. And then I joined him down there." He trails off as he sees Bobby swallow hard. "I wouldn't be telling you this if it wasn't important," he says gently. "Thing is, it was a free for all down there a lot of the time, like a fuckin' bar brawl… endless, like an orgy of pain and… in every possible way, Bobby." Dean stops, breathes deep. "And every so often one of those monsters would say to me, _Sammy sends his love_. I didn't think too much on it at the time… I had— _other distractions_. And then I came back and found out Sam wasn't using the knife any more, and it all came clear to me."

Dean sees it dawn on the old man's face, sees him blanch, and he nods in confirmation as he hands the bottle across. "The knife kills them, Bobby. Sammy's little mind-trick just sent them back. And the first thing they did when they unpacked was stop by my cell to say howdy."

Bobby doesn't speak for a minute, takes another draught of the whiskey, hands it back. "And you need me to make sure he don't do that again," he mutters. "If it don't go the way we hope."

Dean nods. "Damn right. But that's not all, Bobby, because it's gone way beyond smoking out garden-variety demons. Fuck…" He leans on to his hand, heavy, rubs at his brow again, hard. "Wish I could rub it out of my head," he murmurs.

The old man reaches out, grips his wrist. "Spit it out, son," he says steadily. "You know it does you no good to keep it in there."

"Okay, but this is eyes-only," Dean tells him. "You absolutely cannot tell Sam I know this."

Bobby nods, and Dean takes a deep breath, fists his hands and then spits the rest of it out, baldly.

"Sam killed Alastair. Cas wasn't strong enough. Sam was. Cas said he barely broke sweat doing it, and we're talking _upper_ upper-tier demon management, Bobby. Corner office material. Not just some fuckin' drone."

Bobby's eyes narrow, suddenly speculative, and he clears his throat, turns it into a cough as he rubs at his jaw. "That kind of power…" the old man grates out. "It could be the key to this whole mess."

It hangs in the air between them for a minute, that indirect confirmation Dean didn't really need, that Bobby is _choosing_. "Look, Bobby," Dean says then, softly. "I didn't tell you this so you'd think Sam was the solution if this all goes south. I told you because – no good can come of that which was born of Hell."

It stretches the tautness out of the air, and the old man goggles at him for a second. "Say what?"

"Castiel said it. Unto me." Dean air quotes for effect. "Or something like that. I think he might have even done that weird _let us pray_ hand thing Jesus does in all those movies with Chuck Heston in them. You know. Ben-Hur. Fuckin' great chariot race in that movie, when Messala gets it… ouch…" Dean knows he's rambling, avoiding, _deflecting_ , and when he fixes his gaze back on Bobby, the old man looks baffled. "The powers," Dean says firmly. "They're from Hell, Bobby, you know that. They're demonic. No matter what Sam does with them, they're evil. It'll turn bad in the end even if he means well. They'll corrupt him. Heck they already are, he's like Courtney fuckin' Love with PMS."

Bobby swallows, gets that same calculating gleam in his eyes again "But if he's that strong maybe he could get you out," he ventures. "Assuming you go back and your angel loses interest once you've served your purpose."

Dean scowls and something flares inside him, a feeling of defensiveness, protective almost, and he knows his voice is snappish when he replies but he doesn't give a damn. "Cas can't go against what his God tells him, Bobby. He follows orders, he's a soldier. It isn't anything to do with him losing fuckin' interest." And he's sure of that, full sure, one hundred percent certain that if he burns in hellfire for eternity, it will be to Castiel's eternal regret even if the angel doesn't have the cojones to defy Heaven. And eternal regret might not grip him tight and raise him from perdition a second time, but maybe it'll be some comfort until Dean loses himself down there again. And then it won't matter any more.

  
Heavenly Desire has to crane her neck to look up at Sam. She stares at him, avid, and something is shining out of her eyes although Sam can't decide whether it's admiration, lust, or something more calculating, because it's like she's doing arithmetic or something and he's the answer, her own personal eureka moment.

"Agent Roth," she preens at him, flicking her hair back. She rests a bony hand on his arm, clutches the suit fabric, her knuckles ridged, digs the tips of her fingers in, so that Sam is reminded of bats suspended upside down in caves, hanging on for dear life with their claws.

"Don't you G-men come in pairs?" The girl is peering beyond them, around him, up to the mouth of the alley. "You got a partner, maybe? I can do a two-fer if you have, twenty bucks more is all, and it won't—"

Sam shakes off her arm, steps back, stammers through the unsettled feeling. "He's uh… following up another lead," he says, keeps scribbling in his notepad, mind on the job. "And this was two in the morning?" he continues. "And you'd seen the guy before but this was the first time he picked anyone up?"

"What guy?" the girl says, her voice sing-song.

"Come on, Mel," Hudak cuts in. You know what he means."

"Well, no I don't, lady cop," teases out of the kid. "Are we talking that purty boy who got himself sliced up, or the big monster guy who walked out of the shadows and plucked that boy off the tree?"

"Monster guy," Sam says, and it trips his internal radar, because it wouldn't be the first time a civilian stumbled on what really lurks unseen in the shadows. "Why do you think this man was a monster?"

Her face closes down and her voice is flat. "All big guys are monsters, Mister," she says distantly, and then it's like she snaps back. "I mean big guys as wide as they're tall," she adds. "Fat guys. Not guys like you. All… you know. _Muscle_. That ain't bad at all." She smiles. "I bet you got real purty muscles under that suit, Mister. What about your partner? He got muscles like yours? He real tall like you?"

Sam falters, thrown off track by the naked lust gleaming in the kid's eyes, because for a split second it's like he knows her. He wonders if it's some unbidden memory of Jessica staring up at him even though the hooker isn't really anything like Jess, must be the blonde hair, same color eyes, _Maybelline eyes_ , the look she directs at him, the _want-need_ of it. It unsettles him all over again, but he makes himself regroup. "Uh. No. Shorter. Slighter. Look, Ms Desire, this – _monster guy_. You didn't notice anything off about his eyes? Did you get that close?"

The girl digs in her pocket, pulls out a half-smoked cigarette butt, lights it up. "You know, now you mention it there was something weird about that guy's eyes," she puffs out. "They were… real dark. Forbidding. All, like… _shadowed_."

It's what Sam needs to break the spell of her, and he spins, walks away, flipping his phone open as Hudak trots to catch up, leaving the kid in her wake.

"Sam it might not mean anything," she says breathlessly. "When she described the guy before she said he was standing right under the streetlamp just there… if his eyes were black she'd have noticed. She's jerking your chain."

Sam ignores her for the moment. "Bobby, is he there? He isn't picking up." He covers the phone as the old man grunts back at him, hisses down at Hudak, "Then why did she say dark? Shadowed?" He turns back into the phone, his jumpy feeling only building at what he's hearing come back at him, and unbidden, his other hand finds its way into his jacket pocket. His fingers brush over the metal of his flask, and his mouth is suddenly parched at the thought of the warm coppery liquid inside it, at how a sip might settle him, help him concentrate. Even the thought of it sharpens his focus. "Gone where? And do you know if he has one of the new hexbags?" The answer is non-committal, and _damn_. "Yeah, I left them on the nightstand. We need to make sure he switches it for one of the new ones before tonight."

Hudak hovers there next to Sam as he slips his phone back in his pocket and frowns over at the girl where she's leaning up against the wall a few yards back down the alley, staring back at him.

"Sam, to be honest, you kind of walked her into it with the whole _eyes_ thing," Hudak remarks. "You led her."

"I didn't lead her, Kathleen," he says curtly, stepping around the woman and changing the subject. "I need to track Dean down. He won't be far from the motel if he's walking. What time does your shift start?"

"Ten…" Hudak starts doubtfully. "But if you're this spooked, are we still going through with this?"

Sam hadn't even thought not to, and he doesn't consider it now. "Yep. You'll meet us at the motel, yeah?"

"Yeah, around nine forty-five I guess," Hudak replies, not all that enthusiastically if Sam is honest, but he ignores her flat tone, starts walking towards the Impala.

"Hey, Sam," she hails from behind him. "What motel are you guys at?"

Sam glances back over his shoulder. "EconoLodge," he calls back. "Room 12."

  
Dean sees Sam push through the door, and his brother dwarfs everyone else in the bar as he squints through the miasma of blue cigarette fumes and scopes the place. Dean is in a corner booth, and he debates sliding himself down under the table but it's too late, because Sam has a gimlet eye pinning him in place and he's already threading his way through the yokels.

Dean downs the rest of his shot as Sam drops into the seat opposite, pushes an empty glass over towards his brother and sloshes a couple of fingers in there.

"How much have you had?" Sam sharply.

Shrugging, Dean doesn't rise to it. "Just the one as it happens," he says neutrally.

"Glass or bottle?"

"Handle, actually." Dean smirks as Sam's eyebrows shoot up in anger, disgust, whatever. "Chillax, man. Glass. Give me some fuckin' credit." Though he reasons he'll damn well have a couple more to warm him up for later, and not for the first time Dean sends warm thoughts out to his guardian angel for the brand-new liver, because if he was still relying on the old one he'd be on the transplant list by now.

"Kathleen's picking me and Bobby up at nine forty-five," Sam says, more carefully, and he taps his fingers on the table. "And when we spoke to the hooker, she said the guy who picked up this Garner dude had really dark eyes. Shadowed."

"Well, it was dark," Dean suggests, even though his gut is twisting uncomfortably at the vision the revelation provokes. "Maybe they were literally shadowed. As in, _in_ the shadows. You know, _of the night_."

"But before she said he was standing right under the streetlamp."

Dean flaps a dismissive hand, affects a lack of concern that's totally at odds with his racing heart. "I guess we'll find out if the guy turns up." He pours himself another glass, studies his brother for a minute, and Sam is utterly composed. "You know, the easiest way to get this moving would be for me to take off the hexbag," Dean offers again, and maybe it's a test, he doesn't know.

Sam's doesn't blink. "No. No way, Dean. I told you, we're not taking that risk."

"Not your risk to take, Sam," Dean pushes further. "And you know it's a longshot it's even her."

"But if it _is_ her, it's—" His composure suddenly ruffled, Sam huffs out in frustration. "You against her, it's not a fair fight. I don't care what Cas told you, Dean, you don't have the—"

"Guts?" Dean cuts in. "The guts? Or the juice to kill her?"

Sam sets his jaw. "The resources," he snaps. "No one has the resources to go up against Lilith alone."

Dean meets his brother's gaze head on. "Cas might have. He ganked Alastair, didn't he?" He sits and waits then, waits for Sam to cave, waits for his brother to 'fess up, to lay his cards on the table, to explain, to be honest, to tell him the truth about what he's been doing. And it's suddenly the most important thing in the world to be able to look Sam in the eye and know his brother isn't feeding him a line, to know that when Sam tells him he'll stop, _has_ stopped, he can believe it without a shadow of a doubt, so he can know that when Lilith is squeezing the life from him, gutting him, doing whatever she has planned this time, the dying of the light won't hurt quite so bad because Hell isn't having his brother too.

"I guess Cas could have a plan," Sam says.

"Yeah," Dean responds thinly. "That's what I'm hoping for." He finishes his shot, pushes up, glancing down at his mud and oil-patched jeans. ""I need a shower," he says. "And we need to do laundry."

"Bobby said you were playing football with some kids," Sam says as he falls into step alongside Dean as he threads his way through the bar to the door. "He said he thought they might've broken your nose again there for a second."

As Dean leads them out into the dusk, the night air is cool relief against skin that feels too hot and too tight. "Fuckin' violent," he grunts shortly. "Vicious. Man, we were never that vicious."

His brother snorts. "Maybe it's more a case of our violence being more targeted. You know? Controlled? Directed towards a purpose?"

"Yeah," Dean answers. "I guess I felt pretty vicious from time to time, taking out fuglies."

Sam snickers. "I've never seen anything as bloodthirsty as you on the hunt."

It's nothing Dean doesn't already know, but it gives him a chill inside, makes his heart skip a beat. _Maybe that's why_ , he thinks, and he's thought it before, and he says it now, rasping it out past the lump in his throat. "Maybe that's why I enjoyed it."

He feels a hand on his arm, stopping him.

"I will never believe that," Sam says, and the emotion and resolve in his voice sound genuine. "I will never believe you enjoyed it."

Dean shrugs, starts walking again because he can feel his chest tighten and it's too much.

"Dean, I—"

"It's worth it," Dean finds himself saying. "It's all worth it, Sam, whatever happens. I've been thinking about it… something Cas said, after that Samhain mess." He glances to the side, waits for his brother to bristle, but Sam keeps putting one foot in front of the other and there's no vibe of animosity towards the angel that Dean can sense. "He said we're all his father's creations. Works of art." He laughs, and it's real, for the first time in how long he can't even remember. "Those kids… all they could think about was getting that ball back. They were so alive, so much potential, so much to look forward to. And that makes it worth it for me, and I don't care if this is a one-way flight."

Sam chews his lip, doesn't meet his eyes. "But I care," he mutters.

"I know that," Dean says, soft, because how could he ever really have doubted it. "I do, and I know you mean well. But maybe my time is past and it's their time now… so whatever goes down, here or wherever – I'm good with it, as long as it takes her out of the picture and stops this."

Sam wipes a hand across his eyes and his voice is shaky. "But I can't bear to think of you down there. I… Jesus, Dean. You made that deal for me, and I know why you made it, I know why. Dean, you have to let me—"

"No, Sam," Dean interrupts. "You have to let _me_ do this. It's – redemption. For me, for what I did down there—"

"But it wasn't your fault, Dean."

"I still did it. I have sinned, Sam, like you wouldn't believe, and maybe this is my penance or something." Dean swallows hard. "I started this. And I can't let Hell on Earth happen, and you can't either. So maybe you need to let go of this and let it play out like it's supposed to."

"Like Castiel says," Sam follows up faintly, and now there it is, the tinge of bitterness.

"Like Cas says," Dean repeats. "That's the way it is, Sam, the way it has to be. Promise me you'll let it go." _And fuckin' mean it this time_ , he thinks, and there isn't even anger in it, just tiredness and resignation, and doubt.

Sam looks him in the eye, nods. "I promise."

And Dean wonders if his brother might mean it if he asks him to pinkie promise.

  
Bobby hammers on the bathroom door, _Jesusfuck_ , and Dean has to scrabble for the grab bar to stop his feet skittering out from under him.

"Kathleen's here," the old man calls in. "We're heading out to get settled in. You know where you're going?"

Eyes wide open, despite the burn of shampoo bubbles. "Yeah," Dean sings out. "Be there in twenty or so."

He finishes rinsing, steps out of the shower, towels off and swipes a hand across the mirror to clear away the steam. He stares at himself and Hell is smirking back at him from bruised, red-rimmed eyes. His skin is gray and washed-out, the shadow of stubble patching his jaw. "I should stop drinking," he tells his reflection. "It's ruining my pretty looks. I should stop drinking and go live life."

Sounds like a plan, he thinks, and he remembers turning up on Hudak's doorstep three years or so before, pouring it all out to her. He wonders idly if she's up for it, up for the job of some broken-down old hunter who drinks a tad too much, but man, he's good with his hands, he'll keep the Jeep and the truck running like clockwork, maybe start up his own autoshop, be his own boss and finish early on Fridays so he can pick up the kids at the bus stop and take them to the practice backstop at the local park to hit baseballs, and then on to meet the woman of the house at Beef O'Brady's for burgers and fries. "We're sticking a DVD on and locking the bedroom door on Sunday mornings," he breathes.

And then he lifts the cord with its hexbag up and over his head, drops it in the sink. "Time for Plan B," he says to the man in the mirror. "Fuckin' loser."

He doesn't give himself time to reconsider, dresses swiftly without thinking about it. Outside crickets shrill at him as he strides to the Impala, fishing his car keys from his pocket as he tugs open her door. Her rumble is as reliably throaty as ever as he eases her out of the parking lot onto the approach road, to head up to the top of the street.

The few anemic streetlamps lining the verge flash in the same instant the engine fizzles and dies. Trash is suddenly blowing all around, and the shrubs and trees that line the road are dancing madly in the wind, because _demon, Lilith, Hell_ , and Sam was right.

Dean finds with an electric shock of realization that he changed his mind somewhere between the motel room and here. He fumbles for his phone, heaves himself up and out of his baby and sprints for his life, and all he can think is _CasnowpleaseCasnowpleaseCasCasCaspleaseCas_.

He hears the roar coming up behind him, and when he turns, the light blinds him and he freezes, too frightened to run any more. The impact sends pain exploding through every nerve ending, and he welcomes the oblivion that follows hot on its heels.


	12. Dem Bones

It turns out everything Sam ever saw on TV cop shows about stakeouts is true: the room is a garbage dump of discarded takeout boxes, coffee cups with cigarette butts floating in brackish dregs, half-eaten donuts.

He flashes his fake badge for effect, grimaces. "Don't you ever clean up?" he asks the big guy, _Coop, Kathleen said_ , as he pulls on his coat and lights up another cancer stick.

"I leave it to her," the man snarks, jerking his head over to where Hudak is using her foot to clear space for two more chairs in front of the window. "On account of she's the female."

Hudak pulls a face. "I just leave it," she says. "On account of the fact that being female doesn't equate to being the maid. Remind me how many ex-wives you have, Coop?"

The big man laughs as he leaves, points over at a box on the table. "Fresh donuts," he says. "Coffee's on the go too. Don't say I never did nothing for you, Katie."

Sam wrinkles his nose, breaches the strewn trash on his way over to the window to gaze out at a row of nondescript storefronts and a chunk of scrubland that might be a park or might be waste ground. "So what are we looking at?"

Hudak points. "Just over there is where we found the latest victim, on that patch of ground under the tree, so you can see it's pretty well sheltered from the road. The alleyway," she points in the opposite direction, "is just over there."

There's a soft knock at the door and she crosses to open it. "We were hoping one of the hookers might have seen who dumped Garner, but zip," she continues, as Bobby skulks in.

Sam catches sight of a couple of women hovering at the top of the alley, and he shakes his head. "How do they do it?" he murmurs. "Sell themselves for money?"

Hudak shrugs. "They need to eat," she says simply.

It flips Sam to his brother, half-cut and slumped on his butt behind the bar in Hibbing, to Dean's broken confession, _I was too young to hustle pool_ , and he breathes out past a sudden wave of nausea.

"I don't think they see it as sex per se," Hudak is saying. "They see it as a profession."

Bobby starts clattering cups around on the table, pouring coffee. "The oldest profession," he remarks, neutral, as he moves over to stand next to them. "How likely is it really that this guy's going to show up here again?"

"I don't know," Hudak says. "Coop has this theory that it's one of these sadist types who likes to take trophies and show up at the scene of the crime to relive it. That's what the profilers reckon too."

"But this isn't the scene of the crime," Sam points out.

"Definitely not," she says. "Just the dump. But the profile says the place could still have meaning for him, so it's worth a shot. We've got people on the other dumps too. If he's here and he sees Dean hovering, well. We could strike lucky."

Bobby sniggers as he settles in a chair. "If he tries anything on Dean, he'll be missing limbs," he retorts. "Kid's lethal. It'll be rough fuckin' justice, that's for sure."

Sam glances at his wristwatch. "He'll be here any minute," he says. "He's going to hover, see what happens, maybe it won't be too—"

"Where is your brother?"

It's tense, loaded, panicked almost, the words uttered in almost the same instant as the breeze and the eerie wafting, flapping sound of wings beating have Sam whirling around.

"Where is your brother?" Castiel repeats, and now it's edgy, hard, intense, it's weak knees as the angel's eyes blaze beams of bluish fire at Sam, and now it's louder too, now it's the power to smite. "I have lost him. Something is wrong. Where is your brother, Sam?"

Sam flaps his jaw uselessly for a second, bleats, "But you can track him," even as Hudak snatches her car keys up off the table and throws them to Bobby.

"EconoLodge, it's on Arlington," the old man barks as he strides to the door through the airspace the angel vacated the minute he heard Bobby's words. "Sam. Move it."

  
Alastair murmurs words of love, soft and tender, in Dean's ears, tells him about his favorite game, _snap, crackle and pop, Dean_ , and Dean stares, and weeps, and whimpers along to the dry snap of bone, the crackle of compound fractures, jagged bone ends moving and shifting as his master twists his limbs, the dull, sickly pop of joints ripped from their moorings, _I'll grind your bones to make my bread, sweet child of mine_. And Dean learns well, and he leans and murmurs the same words of love, soft and tender, in _their_ ears, the damned, his death's work, _the leg bone's connected to the knee bone, knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, thigh bone's connected to the back bone, back bone's connected to the neck bone, neck bone's connected to the head bone_ —

—The cold wakes Dean, and he's fisting handfuls of damp grass and biting into the ground because he hurts so bad and he can't draw breath to scream. His legs are in water, icy, soaking his clothes up as far as his ribs. It's pitch-black, quiet, no, _not quiet_ , because his head throbs so violently he can hear it pulse. He can feel his brain inside his skull, as if his gray matter grew hands and is hammering on the bone, hammering to be let out of there, and now it's taking a few steps back and launching itself, hurling itself against the thin shell that imprisons it, and Dean knows it's only a matter of time before it occurs to his neurons that they need to team up, chop down a tree and use it as a battering ram, the Battle of Helm's Deep going on inside his cranium, until they smash through the bone and spill out onto the soil to freedom.

_S'nothin'… had worse…_

He tries to piece together what happened and it all comes down to black eyes looking down at him from… Lilith's latest meatsuit? Hidden in shadows as she hooked her foot under him and sent him rolling off the verge and into the ditch, but she didn't take him. He ponders it for a minute through the haze of pain, and thinks it must mean he isn't as important as Cas thinks, or that maybe it's already over, the last seal dust in the wind and the earth cracking open for the world to fall into Hell.

 _Need help. Godhurtshurts. Cas. Now. Need you right the fuck now_.

He digs his fingers into the soil, and it's a horrifying reminder of digging his way up to the light. Dean chokes out a whimper, savors the tendrils of pain that trail up and around him, uses it, braces against it, it's something to fight, it's a target, something he understands, has intimate knowledge of. And he starts to pull himself up to the top, cries out his agony into the dirt as his muscles shriek in protest and his bones grate, because something is very wrong with his leg.

"Motherfuckin'," he groans out into the grass, tasting it wet on his tongue. He sucks up the moisture and thinks idiotically that a good dose of pesticide is just what he needs to get this finished and done right the fuck soon. "Someone help me," he whimpers, and he can't help it, wants to scream it through his cheese grater throat, but it's weak, he can barely hear himself. "Cas. Please help me."

It's enough, he knows, enough for Castiel to hear him, wherever he is. And he hears a voice, someone calling him, _Dean… answer me if you can, Dean I'm here_. It's soaring high on the wind and almost carried away into the purple sky, but Dean knows the voice, trusts it implicitly because it cut through the horror, and the screaming, and the blood, and the suffering _down there_ ; it was comfort, and solace, and love, and salvation, and the light was clean and pure in the squalor.

He forces his own voice to respond and whispers out as his face falls onto his arm. "Cas. M'here. Ditch…"

Soon he'll be lifted and carried into the warm and dry, and Cas will stare at him like he matters, and Sam will make nice with the puppy-dog eyes like old times, and Dean will be fussed over until he wants to hit out in frustration. He closes his eyes, thinks of his bed, but his leg, broken maybe, is saying, _fuck bed, I need some traction action, asswad_ , and every little splinter and shard of shattered bone is getting itself organized, front row kneeling down, back row standing, and they have their bows at the ready and they reach up and over their shoulders and grab arrows from nifty little Robin Hood quivers. They send the arrows up into the sky and they hang in the air like silver raindrops before they fall straight down, dead on target into Dean's brain because the neurons split up and a whole bunch of them are lying down in rows that spell out _pain centers here!_ , and everything explodes in showers of bright red, orange and yellow sparks. Like firecrackers on the fourth of July, he thinks deliriously, and he sighs out and falls into the lights.

  
Hudak's truck rattles, they're screeching along at take-off speed and taking corners on two wheels, and Sam has the door open, falls out onto the road before Bobby skids to a halt a few yards away from the Impala. Her headlamps are at full-beam, her door is wide open, and Sam in there instantly, looking for signs, _blood_ , clues, _blood_ , evidence of a struggle, _blood_ , but there's nothing save for a quart of Jack tossed carelessly in the footwell.

"He isn't here."

Sam shoots up, cracks his skull on the doorframe as his gaze falls on Castiel. Raindrops are spotting his coat and listening on his hair, and he's as calm, as serene as ever on the surface, but something is humming under the impassive exterior, something like simmering energy, or maybe panic. It scares Sam even more, and he wonders if he can sense it because of what Ruby said, because it's cowboys and indians, Bloods and Crips, because it's an enmity so ancient it's part of their make-up, the boy with demon blood and the angel of the Lord mixing like oil and water.

Sam swallows dryly, gasps, "Where is he? How can you lose him? Aren't you connected?"

"We are," Castiel replies, and then he considers and rephrases. "We _were_. He's no longer here."

Bobby looms up, brandishing something. "His phone," he says. "And we can see he's no longer here. Where the fuck is he?"

Castiel stares at them both blankly for a second, drifts away, comes back, and his voice is clipped, brisk. "You misunderstand me. I don't mean that he's no longer here. I mean that he's no longer _here_."

"Fuckin' riddles," Bobby snaps. "Stop talking in fuckin' riddles, man. Track him down, I thought you could—"

The angel takes a step forward and his eyes flare. "He is _gone_ ," he enunciates clearly, patiently, but with an edge of acid in his voice that keeps prickling Sam's senses, and he sees Bobby swallow as Castiel continues. "Gone, from this place and from this plane." He raises his eyebrow at the older man. "Capische?"

Sam reels, plants his hand down on the hood of the car, feels cold sweat drip down his back. "Are you saying my brother is dead?"

Castiel's pause seems endless, seems like the stillness of eternity, and when he finally answers, his voice has lost its edge, it's quiet, almost unsure, hesitant. "I would know if that had happened. I would… _know_."

Sam whirls around again. "So he's alive?"

The angel throws up a hand. "I don't know."

"Well, what the fuck do you know?" Bobby cuts in, his annoyance fueling his bravado again. "Come on. Is he alive or not?"

"We are connected," Castiel says slowly, like he's piecing it together, joining up the dots for himself as well as for them. "But the thread has been snapped. I can't say if he's alive. But I'm certain I would know if he were dead." And then he jerks his head sharply to the left, looks into the trees lining the side of the road for a few seconds. When he looks back it's like something has dawned in his eyes, they're shining with something, Sam thinks, and in the same breath he identifies it as relief, maybe even joy.

"I believe Dean may be flying below radar."

And in amid his own sickly relief, the hot liquid pricking his eyes, Sam knows, just _knows_ , and he starts stumbling away from them, towards the motel. He hears Bobby's muttered curse, hears the crunch of boots hurrying to keep up. He crashes through the door, lights still on, and screeches to a halt at the table, counts, one, two, three, four new hexbags, all present and correct, and he darts his eyes around, this way and that, neatly made bed, marine-neat, and Dean's jacket draped on the chair, _Jesus, he'll freeze out there_ , can't see anything. He snatches up the pillow, Bowie, he left it behind, _no_ ; bathroom then, and there it is, discarded in the sink, soaking wet now. Sam picks it up with a shaking hand, and his legs give way, and his ass hits the floor with such force his teeth rattle.

"He took it off," he breathes, as a shadow falls across him. "Bobby. He took it off. He doesn't have one of the new ones. She has him. Lilith has him."

The old man flips the toilet seat closed, sits down heavily, and he doesn't say anything.

There's a sound at the door and Sam looks up. Castiel again, and the angel contemplates him for a second before he suddenly lowers himself to the floor and sits opposite him, rests an arm on one raised knee and stares at him. "I believe this is what Dean would refer to as a snafu," he says dryly.

Bobby lets out a choked noise from up on his seat. "Do you have anything worthwhile to say?" he barks. "Anything productive? Anything that might actually help?"

Castiel scrunches up his face, reaches up to tweak at his chin and sighs, and it's so oddly human, so oddly _Dean-like_ that it sends a chill up Sam's spine, and it occurs to him that maybe the angel is becoming more human under his brother's tutelage, that Dean is rubbing off the sharp corners, might even be gradually molding Castiel in his own image. And his mind flips to his brother drunkenly rambling one night that _Cas is like T2, man, we just need to take out his CPU and reset it so it isn't read-only… you know, so he can learn!_

"I guess that's a no," Bobby finishes.

Castiel glances up at him. "If Dean comes to any harm, then… heads will roll," he says quietly.

Sam thinks about how the angel held his brother's slumped body in the back of the Impala on the drive to the hospital in Wyoming, too drained by Alastair to beam them there, how he crooned words of comfort in Dean's ear; thinks of the way he tensed with alarm and placed his hand over Dean's to soothe him when Sam's anger at his brother kept him from doing the same. And it doesn't fit, the respect, the _affection_ that he sees in Castiel's eyes when Dean tries to outstare him, and the fact the angel is steering his brother straight back to Hell.

"You care about my brother," Sam says. "I can see it in the way you look at him. But still you'd send him up against Lilith with no way to kill her."

Castiel's eyes flicker away from Sam, look down towards the tile floor. "It's necessary," he replies softly. "So I'm told."

"Well, it looks like you got what you wanted," Sam whispers.

"Perhaps not."

Bobby is still gruff. "Meaning what exactly?"

The angel shakes his head. "I sense no demons in this vicinity. I think it's unlikely they would all be… _cloaked_. As unlikely as it would be for Lilith to be here alone, which leads me to believe—"

"So you don't think it's her?" Bobby cuts in, and Castiel looks up at him again.

"I don't know," he says placidly. "I find myself wondering why Lilith would be here in Duluth, since this city is an…" He pauses briefly, searches for the right words. "Epic fail. Or so I'm told. However, as unlikely it may be, it is possible."

Bobby leans forward, buries his head in his hands and his voice is muffled. "Christ. We're just going round in circles here."

"…And that wasn't a no," the angel continues, as he pushes back up onto his feet.

Bobby's head whips up, and Sam springs upright, fists his hands. "Can you find him?" he grates out.

"It depends," Castiel says.

"Christ," Bobby growls. "Must you be so damned inscrutable?"

"I may be able to find him," the angel says cautiously. "In a manner of speaking."

"What does that mean?" Sam says wearily, and he's so sick of the double talk, because the clock is ticking on his brother, counting down each breath, each heartbeat, and if he listens he can hear Dean screaming inside his head.

"I can find him when he sleeps."

"When he sleeps?" Bobby says, puzzled, and he's wringing his cap between his hands.

Castiel nods. "I can walk in his dreams."

"Like Uriel did…" And Sam falters, blinks hard. "What if he doesn't dream?"

He knows what he's really asking and he knows Castiel does too, and for the first time he sees compassion in the angel's eyes as he regards him, a softer look he usually reserves for Dean.

"He will sleep, Sam. And then he will dream."

"But. If he doesn't. Cas… what if he doesn't?"

And just like that, Castiel is gone.

"I fucking hate it when he does that," Sam breathes.

  
The cold wakes Dean again, and _why the fuck am I still here?_ his brain asks, righteously pissed off and indignant. "Cas," he croaks. "Cas. 'S'taking so long?"

Flashes of lights in the sky, a rumble, a crash, a distant memory of a petite blonde, _the cussin' weather_ , and Dean is suspended above the abyss, crying for his brother. _But it isn't real, not anymore, I got out. Didn't I?_

Something hooks him under the arm, rolls him over, and Dean opens his mouth to cry out but he makes no sound as he stares up at her, because he's sliding down into his panic like he's sliding down the deck of the Titanic towards the boiling surf. He's so terrified he doesn't even flinch as she trails a cold finger along his cheek, cups his face.

"You," she murmurs reverently. "I knew I'd find you. I knew I'd get you back."

And Dean bullets straight into the chill Atlantic waters feet first, and sinks into the depths.

  
A car honks from outside and Bobby peers through the window into the dull gray dawn. "She's here. Don't seem like she's coming in."

Sam downs the rest of his coffee. "She can probably sense Castiel," he mutters as he pulls on his jacket. "It's her version of spraying the corners with Raid."

Bobby snorts. "That just creeps me out," he says irritably. "Don't it creep you out? That they can – _smell_ each other, or whatever it is they do?"

"I haven't really thought about it, Bobby," Sam says tiredly, scrubbing a hand through his hair, but he does now, and suddenly wonders if Castiel can find Dean wherever he is because his brother stinks of the Pit. He shivers, remembers what Dean said about being turned, and for some reason it makes him think of the way his brother teased the skin of his neck with the blade of his knife back in the woods when he was Gabe Bender, how Dean's eyes glowed, but now in his head his brother's eyes are bottomless black, _I tortured souls and I liked it_ , and Sam's gut lurches as he strides to the door, slams through it and breathes in the cold.

He leans back on the wood for a minute, inhales deeply, blows out until he's steady, and she honks again, leans on it until he steps over and folds himself inside.

She doesn't beat around the bush.

"I've turned over every possible demon haunt in this toilet, and no one knows where he is. I'm all out of leads, Sam." He can feel her looking at him. "I'm so sorry."

He chews a thumbnail. "You know her," he chokes out. "What will she do with him?"

She looks away, down, then to the side out of the window and she doesn't answer him.

"Ruby. Will she have done it already?"

She huffs. "Lilith likes to play first."

"Will he—"

"Look, Sam," she says then, harsh, and she raises a hand. "Don't. Don't ask me this. Don't do this to yourself. Just…" She slides a hand over, rests it on his leg. "Keep your eyes on the prize. You're angry, yes? Stoke that rage, Sammy. Use it. Know that whatever happens, we'll get that bitch for what she did. We'll end this. And then we'll work on getting Dean back."

Sam stares ahead, sees the curtain twitch at the motel room window. "What kind of hex do you think she'd use to cloak him?" he mutters. "Isn't there anything we can do to reverse it? Override it?"

Ruby frowns. "Well… I guess if the angel can't find him either, she must be using something similar to what I gave you. That's—"

"A good thing, yes?" Sam jumps in. "You know what's in it? You can cast some sort of spell to cancel it out?"

She stares at him, bites her lower lip. "It isn't that straightforward, Sam," she says gently. "I mean… it's Enochian, old as the hills. I can try to reverse it, but if she's got it planted on him it's going to be pretty difficult to override it from a distance."

"I don't care how hard it is," Sam snaps. "Do it. And I want a list of what's in the bags, so Bobby can get on it too. And the spell." He swallows thickly. "And the flask."

He thinks her eyes might harden, glitter at him for a second. "You know, you do actually have one of the turbo-powered versions, Sam," she snaps. "You could always 'fess up to uncle Bobby and let him check what's in there himself." And then she's looking away, pulling open the glovebox, rummaging. "Here's the flask," she says tightly. "It's fresh from the vein."

Same takes it wordlessly, slips it in his jacket pocket.

"There's no paper," she says.

"Text it to me," he says as he opens the door. "Right now, before you leave. Or email it. And keep looking."

Ruby leans towards him as he straightens. "Hey wait a minute, aren't we going to—"

The thud of the door cuts her off, and walking away feels like escape.

"She's looked everywhere Lilith might be," he says, as he closes the motel room door behind him. "Nothing. She's texting the hexbag ingredients and the spell."

Bobby is pulling the curtain aside again, looking out. "Shame you didn't keep the ones she gave you," he grouses. "If I'd had the chance to figure the damn things out back then, we could've been working on this for the last two hours instead of sitting here cooling our heels waiting to be touched by a fuckin' angel."

And Sam starts, starts to tell Bobby, starts to walk over to his duffel, _precious time_ , but when his phone beeps, it's like salvation, because he doesn't ever want to have that conversation with the old man, the one where he has to tell him in dripping scarlet detail what he and Ruby really do together, that it's way more than the demon-ganking equivalent of shooting bottles off the wall out back, and that he can't risk having the God squad flapping overhead while he does it.

"Okay, got it," he races out as he scans the message. "Let's do this."

Bobby pulls out a chair, pops his computer open. "There's a limit to what I can find out online, Sam," he says quietly. "There might be some people I can email… Ellen, maybe. But this is a longshot."

"Castiel might know something," Sam says as he drops into the chair opposite, cracks his own laptop. "Ruby says she thinks it's Enochian. He knows all that stuff."

"Wherever the hell he is," Bobby mutters. "Let's hope he's looking." He taps at the keyboard for a few minutes. "New wheels," he says absently, as he stares at the screen.

"Huh?"

"New wheels. Different car." He rolls his eyes at Sam's puzzled expression. "Ruby. She traded up, I see. Some poor sap's missing a sweet little Mustang this morning."

  
Dean comes round to pitch black again, cold again. His head is still throbbing, and he reaches to rub it into submission but his hand jerks back against cold metal. _Grass, there was grass_ , he thinks, and he's confused, and he feels chill air on his face, _the cussin' weather_ , that memory again.

He remembers where his other hand is, hopes it's still attached, doesn't want to play the stumpy game with Alastair again. And he finds his fingers are right where they should be, and he touches his thumb to each of them in turn, all four, who'd have thunk? He taps his hand out across something hard, damp, pooled water just there, _concrete? Rock?_ He aches and jars over every inch of himself, _fuckin' whiplash everywhere_ , and it's like that time his dad's truck got rear-ended and for weeks afterwards his neck split with pain, grinding, creaking pain that had him full sure his head wasn't attached any more, and he walked around ramrod straight in case it fell off his neck and rolled away.

He moves his leg, _big fuckin' mistake_ , bites off a shriek, buries his teeth in his sleeve, and he can feel tears sliding out of his eyes because the pain is like his flesh boiling, sizzling, and dripping down off his bones onto the floor, but he's had worse. "Had worse," he breathes out. "Fuck you, bitch."

"You mind your mouth, boy," her voice hisses back from the blackness, and Dean tenses so rigid he thinks his other three limbs might snap, has to clench his insides tighter than a drum so he doesn't piss himself in terror, bite down on his tongue so he doesn't start begging for mercy before it even starts.

His eyes search the darkness frantically, spy what might be a shadow in the corner, and he summons up what's left of his guts, croaks out, "Where is this?"

She doesn't answer, but he hears the rustle of her clothes, senses her prowling, and right then her breath is in his ear. "My place," she whispers moistly, and her lips tickle Dean's ear so that he shudders. "My place and yours, little angel mine, all special for you because I knew I'd find you one day…"

Dean feels her fingers dance up his chest, feels the tug of the cord at his neck as she runs her fingers over his amulet. "When I saw this I knew it was you," she murmurs, "when all those others weren't you."

"Lilith," he mutters, and he blinks his eyes hard closed as she leans down.

She rains kisses on his eyelids, rubs her cheek on his, teases his bottom lip between her teeth, and he squeaks as she bites down, and he tastes blood. "I can be anyone you want me to be," she says. "I waited for you, and I searched for you for years, and I can be anyone you want me to be…"

There's something not right, not logical in that, Dean thinks, and he dares to creep his hand between them as she grinds against him, and he pushes gently, says, "I… don't… want to."

Her hands roam up and down, and they rub, and press, and squeeze, and her voice is like silk. "You never wanted to then either, boy, but he took what he wanted and now it's my turn." She licks a wet stripe up his cheek. "I'm going to make you scream," she purrs throatily. "I'm going to do things to you that you never even heard of."

Dean pushes harder, more insistently, until she draws back and he hears the whistle of her hand slicing through the air. His head rings when she hits him. _Hell's fuckin' bells_ , he thinks dazedly, and through the fog her voice is like a razor.

"I can get my buddy Al in here to teach you some manners if you don't behave, boy…"

It resounds in Dean's head like the crack of a rifle, panic, _Alastair_ , fright, _Alastair_ , dread, _Alastair_. It's a crescendo, the thunderous rumble of hooves hitting the ground, _stampede_ , _steers_ , _mustangs_ , _antelope_ , _buffalo_ , _caribou_ , _fuckin' dinosaurs_ , in his brain. They pounding across the plateau of his sanity, throwing up dust, and whooping redskins race their painted ponies along in back of it all, waving tomahawks, and they run any residual rational thought off the cliff to its death and then they skin it and live off it all winter long.

Dean turns his face to the side and stares into the dark while she works on him, and he accepts Jesus Christ as his savior in his head, again and again, but he isn't redeemed.


	13. A Dry and Waterless Place

Hell is a vision of flame orange and red, everlasting fire that consumes Dean mind and body, and smoke wreathes up from the sizzling flesh of the damned, who have no rest in their flaming tombs.

Dean writhes, and cries tears of blood, and shrieks out his anguish while Alastair comes to him wearing his brother, rips him apart, rearranges him, reconstructs him, reanimates him as some twisted, freakish monster, and calls it free expression. Right at the end Sam whispers in his ear, _I've got a little freakiness inside, Dean, and you know that a man's got to deal with it_ , and Dean gurgles and drowns in his own blood, but as he fades and dies, he sees movement.

Some guy is staring at him from the corner, and Dean finds he is mesmerized by cool blue in this world of scorching heat and coal-black eyes. He lifts up his hand, and the man reaches towards him, grips him by the shoulder and draws him close; he lifts comforts, and soothes Dean, and Dean basks in a flood of warmth, love, _raised from perdition_. And then he's whole again, manacled and gazing up to where Sam is staring cruel, lethal affection down at him as he bends closer, licking his lips in anticipation, putting his hands where they never should go. Dean cranes his head, looks beyond his brother that was, and the blue-eyed man is still rising, higher and higher, fading into the smoke and ash. _It doesn't happen that way, that's not how it went down_ , Dean thinks, and he fights, kicks, screams into the searing heat, "Don't leave me behind, you bastard! That isn't what happened! Come back! Cas! Come back! Cas! _Cas_!"

He's still screaming when he wakes.

  
"Yeah, thanks Ellen. I'll be in touch." Bobby snaps his phone shut, throws it down on the table. "She thinks the second part might be Druidic. And since we don't have the Enigma machine handy, where the fuck we're going to find a translation for it is beyond me." He makes an exasperated noise and scratches at his beard. "You said Ruby worked some kind of magic spell to track Dean down in Shoshoni? Was it like what we did before New Harmony?"

Sam shakes his head. "No… she did this thing with flames. I don't know exactly." _Because I was too busy jonesing for my fix_ , he thinks dully, but even his self-disgust doesn't stop his gaze from drifting to his jacket, to the pocket, the hidden flask. "But she said if Lilith put a hexbag on him, that wouldn't work."

He forces his eyes back to his laptop, pulls up another browser, starts trawling the net but the twitch in him is impossible to resist. He stands up after a minute, crosses to the bed, sits down and lets it explode out of him, punching into the pillow, a fusillade of blows. He can feel his face burning red hot as his hair rat-tails into his eyes, and his jaw is clamped so tight closed he can feel the nerves in his teeth tingle. When it's out of his system, he stares at the split, torn pillow slip through a cloud of feathers floating down like a lazy winter snowfall, and they tickle his nose and land on his eyelashes, making him blink.

A swish to his left, and Bobby's hand is there, bottle of beer held loosely between thumb and forefinger.

"Look like you could use a drink."

Sam doesn't take the beer. "My brother might be dead," he gasps out instead.

The old man sits down heavily next to him, and he's blunt. "What are you going do if he is?"

Sam's mind is suddenly clear. "The smell of napalm in the morning springs to mind," he hears himself snarl. "I'm thinking jihad, scorched earth policy, fireball, mushroom cloud. Flash blindness will be the least of that bitch's worries, and when I—"

"That isn't going to happen, son," Bobby cuts in, and when Sam glances sideways at the old man, his eyes are pink and watery.

"There isn't going to be any revenge quest this time," Bobby continues. "No Ruby. Because that isn't what your brother wants, Sam. He told me. And if he—" Bobby stops, swipes at his eyes with the back of his hand, clears his throat. "You owe him this. So that means you're letting go of this and coming back home with me. And we take it from there, and we do this one together."

Sam looks away, breathes through the anger tightening his chest. "I want to, Bobby," he says. "God I want to. To let go of this. He asked me to. But this isn't just about revenge, it's about redemption. For my failure. He's my brother. My _brother_ , Bobby. He made that fucking deal for me, and I couldn't save him from it. I told him I would, but I couldn't. And you don't know what it's like… how it feels, to _know_." He looks back again then, and sees it all there in Bobby's eyes: everything his brother said about Hell, because Dean's halting words sparked and flared into an unforgettable fire that burns out of control in Sam's imagination, a wall of crematorium flames forty feet high, curling and licking around wraith-like fluttering forms, faces featureless apart from black-hole eyes and wide-open Munchian mouths wailing their own funeral dirge, the souls of the damned suffering for all eternity and his brother lost among them. The image is so vivid, so palpable, that Sam can smell the stench of burning flesh and hair, and he knows Bobby can too.

Bobby nods slowly, and his voice cracks as he replies. "You're right Sam, I don't know, never will. The loss was different for me, and maybe I don't feel the same sense of guilt you do. But this obsession with revenge – it's doing something to you, son, and it isn't redemption. It's damaging you. Dean is worried about you. Worried about you spending time with Ruby."

"I know," Sam mutters.

"Do you?" Bobby says sharply. "And do you know what you're doing with her? Really?"

That annoyance swells again, the feeling that nobody else really gets it but him. Sam controls it, clenching his fists. "I'm using her," he insists. "She's useful. She's helping me track Lilith."

"So she says," Bobby retorts. "I'm not denying she's helped us out, Sam, but at the end of the day you can dress a hog in a tux and stick a cigar in its mouth and underneath it's still a hog daydreaming about wallowing in the mud. She's a demon."

Sam bristles and gets right down to the reality of this. "She may be a demon, Bobby, but she's been doing way more to put a spoke in the Dean versus Lilith smackdown than Castiel. Who apparently wants to put my brother in the ring with no way to defend himself. And it's—"

 _Fucking typical_ , he thinks, as the angel materializes right in front of him, and in the same instant it registers that Castiel is blank-eyed, dazed, and swaying on his feet. Sam is already standing up and reaching out as Castiel loses his legs and slumps forward right into Sam's arms.

"Dean," the angel chokes out, and his eyes are closing, his head lolling. "I saw him."

"Castiel!" Sam barks, and he shakes the angel, once, twice and then again, harder.

"Sit him down," Bobby clips out tersely, and he's pouring whiskey into the glass on the nightstand, crowding close and putting it to the angel's lips. Castiel takes a draught, grimaces and splutters most of it back out, before goggling up at Sam, and just like he did back in Shoshoni Sam thinks the look in Castiel's eyes is eerily similar to Dean's post-nightmare thousand-yard-stare.

He puts the memory out of his head, snaps, "Well, where is he?"

"He's in Hell," Castiel whispers.

Sam thinks he hears Bobby cry out, but he isn't sure because of the roar in his ears and the stir in his belly, a pulse of heat, despair, grief, _fury_. He feels his heart start to race, his muscles tense, the hairs on his arms stand up and salute, but when he manages to speak he finds he can keep his voice low and controlled. "And what the fuck is your plan for getting him out of there?"

Castiel comes to his senses sufficiently to look puzzled, quirking his eyebrows and cocking his head to one side, but he doesn't answer, so Sam rampages on. "You do have a plan for getting him out, yes? Given it was pretty obvious that this is how it would end if he went up against Lilith?"

Castiel shakes his head just barely. "No, Sam, you don't understand—"

Sam's control is failing him bit-by-bit, he can feel it shredding. He bends down, grips the angel's shirt and tie in his fist, pulls him up and closer, so they're eye to eye. He hears Bobby's warning only faintly, slaps the old man's hand away as it rises, and now he can feel his anger boiling inside him, a volcano of power, and he thinks he can smell sulfur on his own breath as it gusts out.

Castiel frowns, and his hand comes up and bats feebly at Sam's where it grips his clothing. "Stop," he protests faintly. "Now. And listen. Your brother dreams of Hell, Sam. He _dreams_ of it."

And just like that the rage is gone, punctured by relief, and Sam deflates with a tangible hiss of tension escaping, so that he feels ragdoll-limp. He lets go of the angel, reels back until his legs make contact with the other bed, and sits down. "He's dreaming," he chokes out. "He's alive."

And Castiel is smiling as his eyes roll up into his head and he falls backwards.

  
Hudak arrives to find Sam staring intently at the unconscious figure, and Bobby supplies a redundant, "Still nothing," as she pulls out a chair and sits.

"Have you tried smelling salts?" she suggests. "There's a pharmacy back up on the highway." She shrugs at Bobby's look. "You never know."

"It's like he's comatose or something," Bobby grouses. "We've tried everything bar firing off a round into the pillow right next to his ear."

Hudak huffs. "But he reckons Dean is alive? How sure can you—"

"Dean is alive," Sam cuts in, sharp. "He's dreaming, so he must be. And we need to find him instead of chatting, so how can you _help_?"

Hudak glances across at him, finds his eyes fixed so intently on her it's unnerving for a second. "I can't put any kind of BOLO out on him because the department has his FBI file," she offers. "There were no reports of anything suspicious at any of the drop sites last night, but it's too soon anyway."

Sam nods. "How long do you think he has?"

"Based on the others?" Hudak returns, and Sam nods again, his focus still steely. "Seems to have been around seventy-two hours or so between them being reported missing and the bodies showing up," she goes on. "But it was quicker with the last guy."

Something flickers in Sam's regard then. "And you think that means something?"

It does, though Hudak confirms it only reluctantly. "Theory is whoever's doing this could be stepping it up, maybe even reaching the point when they might get sloppy."

Cocking his head, Sam says, "In what way?"

Hudak is brutally honest. "They might get caught out dumping the body."

Bobby pushes his chair back, the slide of wood loud and harsh, and before Hudak can stop him he's upright and striding away. At the same second, Sam's stare finally falters, drifting back to the angel's lax form.

A beat of time passes, and Hudak glances over towards the door Bobby disappeared through, hears the sound of running water. "I'll go see if he's okay," she ventures, and Sam makes a humming noise at her.

In the bathroom, Bobby is wiping his face with a towel, and he rolls his eyes at Hudak in the mirror. She ignores the deflection. "I'm sorry," she says, and she tamps her own fear and anxiety down as it threatens to surge up again. "I'm finding this… it's easier for me if I try to maintain some – _professional_ distance from this. And it's. Uh. It's—"

Bobby cuts in himself, gentle. "I know. I know." He jerks his head towards Sam, out in the motel room. "Shit'll hit the fan in ways I don't even want to think of if this goes badly. We need to find him, or Sam won't cope very well."

Hudak pushes the door half-closed as surreptitiously as she can, recalls a whispered conversation in the dark. "Dean told me. About the whole Hulk smash deal, and the demon zapping. It scares him. I don't know all the details, but it scares him."

Bobby sighs. "This thing of Sam's, it isn't natural. Something happened to him when he was a baby to make him like that. But it isn't good."

"Dean says it's changing him, he kept rambling on about Annakin Skywalker," she whispers, and Bobby snorts. "He was drunk," she concedes, but even so the memory of Dean's slurred-out words chill her. "He said Sam has powers that come from Hell."

Bobby raises an eyebrow. "Cliffs Notes version," he says, and he motions to the toilet seat. "Sit down, I'll fill you in."

  
Castiel doesn't come around so much as snap alert and sit bolt upright, eyes clear and bright as they rest on Sam.

"My apologies," he says, and Sam notes that he's back to his usual steely calm. "I was taken by surprise and unprepared for Hell."

"A dream, you said it was a dream," Sam pushes urgently, and the angel nods.

"It was, but although it was an illusion Hell is like an infection to the Host, it… is remote from God and starves us of His light." Castiel pauses briefly, and Sam thinks he sees a tremor shake his frame before he goes on. "The dream… it was also very real to Dean."

Isn't that the truth, and, "It always has been," Sam mutters. "It's like he's back there. Suffering through it all again." He bites his lip. "Fuck. Isn't there anything you can say or do so he knows it isn't real? I just… I don't want him thinking he's there when he isn't. It's bad enough without him thinking he's back there."

Bobby and Hudak have appeared from the bathroom, their whispered conversation forgotten. "This dreamwalking you do," Bobby ventures. "You can talk with him, tell him what he's experiencing isn't real? And find out where he is, where she's keeping him?"

Castiel shakes his head, somber. "It's his dream. He controls it. Within the dream I can observe, communicate, but I can't influence where or what he dreams about once he is in the dream. He can tell me as much as he knows but no more than that."

"So if he was knocked out, he isn't going to know where he is unless they drop clues?" Hudak offers.

"Exactly," the angel nods. "Moreover, if his dreams are nightmares he may wake from them abruptly if I try to steer him… but if he is caught too deeply in the dream, he may not realize I'm not a part of it."

"Even if you weren't ever there with him before?" Sam says, and then he remembers, huffs out. "You _were_ there with him before. When you pulled him out."

Castiel taps his hand on his leg, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. "This could confuse matters, particularly if Lilith is responsible. Her presence will convince him even more… but if I push too hard he may become aware and wake." His fingers move faster as he deliberates. Then, "Sam, is there anything I can say to your brother that he might remember when he wakes? Something that could possibly shake the illusion?"

And then it hits Sam, the solution, and he shoots to his feet. "Bobby," he races out. "Dream root. The dream root… if we could get some. There's bound to be some hair on Dean's pillow, I can get in the dream, maybe convince him it isn't real."

Bobby shakes his head, scowling. "It's not a case of going to the local whole food market, Sam, it could take days to find a source and your brother might not have time."

"Well we can still look, for Christ's sake," Sam barks back at the old man. "We could get lucky, track down a…" He trails off, because Castiel is gazing up at him and there is a look of profound sadness in the angel's eyes that Sam knows is somehow significant. "It could work," he insists. "I was never in Hell with him. He'll realize that, it could jerk him back into reality, and – what? Why are you staring at me like that?"

"You were in the dream with him, Sam," Castiel says softly. "Because you were in Hell with him, back then. Alastair made it so. And Dean's memories of your company are not… good ones."

Sam gapes, baffled for a moment. "What do you mean by that? Not good ones? What does that mean?" But even while he's saying the words, he can hear his brother, _he makes me see people that aren't really there_ , and suddenly Sam knows. _I never want to see black eyes looking back at me from your face_ , Dean had said, and, "He used me," Sam gasps. "Alastair made himself look like me."

"I saw you," Castiel confirms quietly. "Both of you."

"What was I doing?" Sam chokes out.

"You don't want to know," Castiel says bluntly. "Trust me on that, Sam. And I'm sorry, but I can't betray your brother's confidence and trust by revealing what he endured."

Suddenly Sam wants to scream, wants to tear the room apart, rip the world to pieces. But he feels Bobby moving to stand next to him, feels the old man's hand reassuring on his shoulder, and he breathes out deep. "Funky town," he says, low and steady. "In the next dream, tell him it's a funky town. It's a code word we use when something's up."

Rising to his feet, Castiel nods. "Thank you for watching over me, Sam," he says, and glances over at Bobby. "I hope to have more news for you soon, when Dean sleeps again."

Hudak's phone is trilling and she rummages it out of her pocket. "Hang on a second… hey, Castiel?" She starts, stops, starts again, cheeks pinking a little. "This is going to sound really juvenile, but when I had bad dreams as a kid, my dad used to tell me to think happy thoughts before he switched the light off. So maybe you could, you know, tell Dean to think happy thoughts." She shrugs. "Or to try to, anyway. He might remember that when he wakes."

Castiel inclines his head, considering. "Think happy thoughts," he parrots, and then he's gone.

Sam sinks back down on the bed, leans forward to dip his face into his hands and hide in the darkness there, and from behind his shield, he hears Bobby grunt.

"Think happy thoughts?" the old man says acidly, but Hudak ignores him.

"That was Coop." San comes out from behind his barricade to see her grabbing her jacket. "Got something," she says, as she strides to the door. "Could be something, anyway. I'll be in touch."

  
Now Dean has been promoted Hell is his Sistine Chapel, his and Alastair's, and he paints such beautiful pictures with the hopeless.

He stalks them, and trails a fingertip up their quaking flesh, and he hisses in their ears, _don't fear what kills your body, don't fear the reaper… fear the one who can destroy your soul in Hell, and hey buddy, that's me, and this fire won't ever be quenched. And you can weep, and gnash your teeth, and wail and whine, but I'm controlling the transmission, I control the horizontal, I control the vertical, I can roll the image or make it flutter, I can change this to a soft blur or sharpen it to crystal clarity, but whatever I do you are about to participate in a great adventure, and you are about to experience the awe and mystery that reaches from the inner mind to the outer fuckin' limits…_

He cavorts around them, a slash here, a slice there, a strip there. He pares, and rends, rips and tears, carves them into new animals, while Alastair hoots, cheers, turns handsprings of sheer joy, and then caresses, and overwhelms, and fills him; and he screeches and sobs his ecstasy while he inflicts hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, of second deaths.

He throws his arms up to Heaven and he cackles in sickly glee, _I found my niche_. He wears their blood like warpaint, their entrails like a scarf, and their hides like a cloak, and the dark-haired man in the trenchcoat stands and watches him with blue, blue eyes.

Stumbling to a halt, he cocks his head, because the man is clean, cleaner than anything he ever saw down here, and the flames cower from him. "What are you?" he blurts out, and his voice cracks, smoke roughened and atrophied with disuse because the lower registers are unheard here, _everyone screams in Hell_. "What kind of creature are you?" he asks as he circles, studies, reaches out to touch. It burns, and he yelps, springs back.

"What are you?" the man asks, and there is an expression in his eyes that might be disgust. "What kind of creature are _you_?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," he smirks. "Please allow me to introduce myself. I'm a man of wealth and taste—"

"So I see," the man says primly, and his eyes range up and down, unimpressed.

He looks down at his bare chest, the rags that might once have been jeans. "I'm real sorry," he snakes out. "I didn't dress for the occasion but you know, like the man said, we like to keep it informal down here. As well as infernal."

The dark-haired man smiles, just barely. "What are _you_?" he repeats.

"I am the wicked," he sings, "the vile sinner who broke His commandments, the transgressor, who is without hope. I am the devil."

When the man smiles now, his eyes are soft. "You're not that. You're Dean. Hello, Dean. And enough with the sermon on the mount crap. You sound like the Reverend Ike."

_Dean…_

"I'm a child of Hell, you fuckin' asswipe," he snaps indignantly. "I worked hard to make something of myself down here, so have some fuckin' respect. I'm the real deal, not the fuckin' electronic evangelist." He considers. "Though having said that, well. Prosperity _now_ and all that crap… I can go with that."

The man watches him, relaxed, casual. "None of this is real, Dean," he says.

He smiles, jerks his head. "Oh yeah? Beg to differ, pilgrim. See my rack? That's real… solid fuckin' mahogany, man, none of that flatpack crap down under." He backs away, smoothes the woodgrain with a loving hand. "Alastair – he's my boss, sugar daddy, fuckbuddy, mentor, _whatthefuckever_ , more like my mental, well he likes to go antiquing. He got this one in a mom-and-pop store somewhere in Maine, I do believe…" He bares his teeth, sneers, "you feel like a rest? It's real comfy, I can vouch for that. I slept like a baby on it many a night myself." He wrinkles his nose. "Well. Like a baby being disemboweled with a plastic spoon."

The man stares at him. "I'm not tired, Dean. I don't sleep."

"Well maybe you haven't been rode hard enough, dude," he leers. "Maybe I can fix that. Ride you hard and put you away wet. Right now… if you'd just like to drop 'em and assume the position…"

He lifts his cleaver, starts to shimmy and slow dance his way back over there, and cool air fans his face and chest. He stops in his tracks, closes his eyes and revels in it. "Breeze," he marvels. "I haven't felt the breeze on my skin since the second circle, dude. Man, that feels good… the wind there was too much, cussin' weather just like she said, but this…"

He cracks his eyelids, feels a thrill of fear, drops to his butt with a cry at their shadow, black against the red sky, twenty-foot wingspan, but then he can't help his whimper or the way he scrabbles forward, closer, until he huddles there at the man's shoes. "Shade," he murmurs. "The sun never sets here, and it burns me. This fuckin' sand melts my feet. My skin peels. Blisters, see? And fuckin' freckles everywhere, look. Look!" He stabs at his chest aggressively. "I bet that bitch is up there tannin' even now while I fry down here," he says bitterly. "I'm getting skin cancer for sure. It's not fair."

"This isn't real, Dean," the man cuts in gently. "This is a Hell of your mind. Do you know where you really are?"

_Dean…_

He blinks, concentrates, searches what's left of his brain. "Got nothing," he says mournfully. "Those corrosives do their magic slowly and sweet, man, it's mush up there." He wraps his arms around his knees, leans against the man's leg. "Dark," he whispers. "If it could just be dark, for a little while. So I wouldn't have to see." He buries his face in the fabric of the man's pants, feels light pressure on the top of his head. The man's hand, and his voice is gentle again.

"Dean. Do you know where you are?"

He stays in the dark, rocks back and forth. "I would not be just a nothing, my head all full of stuffing and my heart all full of pain," he sings, soft. "I would dance and be merry, life would be a ding-a-derry, if I only had a brain."

The man nudges him with his foot. "The Wizard of Oz."

He looks up, glances around him. "He's here too?" He throws up his hands. "I'm not surprised. We get all sorts down here. Was he one of mine?"

"It's a movie. With Judy Garland." The man raises an eyebrow. "She flies somewhere over the rainbow. With her dog. You told me this, Dean."

He nods slowly. "Somewhere over the rainbow," he ventures. "Like me I guess. No pot of gold though, huh? No dog either. Except I got hellhounds, yep. Got plenty of those babies." He smiles. "Judy isn't here," he confides. "Turns out it was an accident after all. Damn shame. But get this…" He beckons and the man squats down opposite him. "Lilith tells me Kurt Cobain is. She says he's still in the middle ring."

The dark-haired man tilts his head. "The middle ring?"

He nods enthusiastically. "Yeah. See, this is the seventh circle. I made a lot of progress, dude, I'm climbing the ladder, I'm talking company car and gym membership, stocks and shares. I'm Alastair's black-eyed boy and he's taking good care of me, he broke me out of the first ring end of year twenty-four." He shudders. "Thank the Maker, because rivers of boiling blood do not me a happy camper make, you know what I'm saying?"

"Violence…" the man murmurs.

He clicks his fingers together. "You said it. Seventh circle. Violence. Poor old Kurt, he's still stuck in the middle ring." He huffs out ruefully. "Suicide. Lot of rock stars in there, actors too. Almost makes me wish I hadn't been promoted, though I hear it isn't much fun in there." He whistles out. "They get turned into trees. Can you believe that? And harpies live in there and tear pieces off them. Still. I might get the chance to meet him one day. Ask him what Courtney's really like."

The man stands, gazes around him. "The inner ring," he muses. "Where the violent against God are cast, and the sodomites wander." He cocks his head. "It's a funky town, Dean."

"You got that right, buddy," he whispers. "Sodomites…" He looks around him, peers at the shimmering horizon. "Don't remind me. Still, at least I can usually see them coming." He smiles. "It's like Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia. They start out a little speck in the distance and get bigger and bigger. So sometimes I have time to dig into the sand and hide. Sometimes. But sometimes they—"

"Dean, do you know who brought you here?"

He shivers. "Her. Lilith. She found me. She waited for me and searched for me for years and she knew she'd find me one day… knew it was me when she saw this." He closes his fingers around the amulet resting on his chest, tarnished and dull with blood and soot. "After all these years." He looks up then, to where the wings still spread out, like a canopy. "Shelter," he murmurs. "Give me shelter." He reaches up. "Stay," he pleads, in a broken whisper. "I know I'm not clean, I know I don't deserve forgiveness, or comfort. But stay. I'm so tired, but I can't sleep because it's never nighttime here. The dust rains from the sky all the time, and it's fiery… it gets in my eyes and it burns them till I can't see any more, and then I can't see them coming, can't see to hide. Don't leave me. The ghosts of my life are here with me. Stay."

But the picture is flickering and jumping, and the man is fading and his blue eyes are sad, and his voice is distant and faint. _This isn't real, Dean… think happy thoughts_. And then there is only bright, searing sun scorching him as he sits alone in the desert of flaming sand, and he—

—Jolts awake with a cry, bright light shining in his face, and just as quickly it snaps off again. Then someone has hands under his armpits, drags him upright and Dean slumps against the wall while pain pummels him everywhere, like he's the bounce house mom and dad rented for the party and little Josh and his buddies are pogo-ing up and down on him. He throws his hand up to his mouth as acid bile rises and his guts twist unhappily.

"I splinted your leg."

It's a man's voice, and Dean freezes, stutters, "Al-Al—"

"Yup, that's me buddy."

It's reflexive, automatic. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas—"

"Shut the fuck up, retard," the man cuts in harshly. "Grub's up. Down there, to your right. Sub. From Subway. She ain't such a good cook so I got you take-out."

He forgot, it doesn't work in Hell. And he's starving through his nausea, and he pats the ground, feels his hand fall on something soft. He grabs it, stuffs it in his mouth, bolts it down in great, barely chewed lumps, and in the back of his mind roughly half his brain cells are puzzling over the fact they never fed him this kind of food the last time he was here.

"There's water too," the meatsuit says, and Dean feels a plastic bottle pressed into his hand.

He guzzles down a few mouthfuls, the liquid blessedly cool lubrication for his raw throat, then squints into the dark. "Where am I?" he whispers. "Is this still Violence? I can't see where I am… there's no sand. Did you move me?"

The man cackles. "Violence is right," he sneers. "Holding pattern. That's you, Dean."

Dean forces himself to think, but perceptions, impressions, suppositions and theories divebomb his brain like kamikaze wasps at a summer picnic, veering off before he can swat them into submission. "I don't understand…"

"You ain't supposed to."

He hears the crack and crash of thunder again, flinches. _Storms_ , and that makes some kind of addled sense. "Is this the second circle?" he croaks. "Am I back in the second circle?"

"The fuck?" It's irritable, and Dean feels something kick out at his leg, and thank God it's the good one. "You're in the fuckin' elevator. Sheesh."

"Express elevator ride to Hell," Dean breathes out.

A hollow chuckle follows. "You could say that. But heck, she likes you. Maybe she'll keep you round longer than the others."

"The others…?"

"Yeah. They weren't the right one, none of them. But she says you are. And that makes her real happy." The meatsuit hacks in his throat, spits. "Whatever works."

Dean hears bones snap, crackle and pop and light suddenly streams in, _from where?_ There's a grinding sound, and then it's dark again.

And Dean wants to shout for help, but he can't remember who to shout for.


	14. Somewhere Only We Know

She watches him in his delirium, takes careful mental notes as he calls out names, spits out curses, and sobs out despair and loss, and she lays a comforting hand on his brow, bends close and whispers soothing words in his ear, "I dreamed of you."

She remembers how having him near made her feel special, how only he could fill the emptiness. She remembers how holding his life in her hands made her feel like God, and how losing him took that power away; until she seized it back again in her daydreams and chased those dreams through every different version of him, fine-tuning each one to make it as perfect as her fantasy of him. And she remembers weeping out her frustration and rage as every blubbering replica proved false.

"But not you," she whispers. "You're the real one. You make me feel good. You make me feel powerful. Back in control."

She grips his chin, digs her nails into the hard planes of his jaw, turns his face towards her and exhales cigarette smoke in his face so that he winces, nose twitching. She places the tip of her knife where the longest lashes rest on his cheek, traces the blade down, seeing blood bead in its path. His eyes crack open in the dim glow of her flashlight, just a slit at first, that second's bleariness between sleep and wake, and then they open wider, startled and then horrified.

He shrinks back into his corner, gasps "Christo."

"Nope, just me," she says playfully, and she maneuvers herself alongside him, leans up against him, can feel him tense up, shudder, feel his heart thudding and the heat of his skin through his tee. "You always were so warm," she murmurs. "Like a furnace."

The word makes him jump, squeak, tense up even more. "Well, what are you waiting for, bitch?" he chokes thickly, and his voice cracks. "Just take me back there. Why the fuck are you holding me in Limbo anyway? Why don't you just take me back?"

She kisses the shell of his ear, sings softly, "Yeah, we can do the limbo rock, all around the limbo clock… How low can you go, angel boy?"

"You can't hurt me anymore," he dares.

She plays her eyes up his red-streaked arm to his wrist, already swollen and red where the plastic tie that secures him to the metal bar is deeply embedded. "Brave boy," she purrs. "My brave little soldier. But I can hurt you good… and you know you love it. You know you want it." She clambers up over his hips, straddles him, grinds herself down on him. "Do you have something big for me to play with?" she teases, and she laughs out her triumph as she feels him squirm and harden underneath her. "I'm in charge of this. Don't you forget who's the boss of you."

"Bitch," he spits out, but it's hollow, desperate, and he turns his face away, squeezes his eyes tight shut again. "It's nothing. It's biological. It means nothing."

"I'll stop," she hums in his ear. "I'll stop if you beg. You were always so good at begging… why don't you beg me to stop like you begged him to, huh?"

And then he looks right at her, his gaze rock steady. "I'm never going to beg you bastards again," he croaks. "You may have me back but I'm not breaking this time. I'm not becoming like you again, not ever. You can't hurt me any worse than you and he did before, and—"

She cuts him off on a garbled cry and the smell of seared flesh as her cigarette makes a crisp blackened hole in the fabric of his tee. "I do love a barbecue," she smiles, and she stabs the butt against his flesh again, wriggles again, feels an answering twitch, sees his appalled look before he closes it down.

"Even good boys get off on pain," she murmurs. "I can feel how much you get off on it, how much you like it. How much you want it, just like you always did back then. You miss it… you miss me and him, and the way it used to be." She smiles fondly. "We had such good times together, the three of us, before _he_ came and took you away."

His eyes widen at that, lighting up with a flash of hope. "He's coming back," he mutters. "He'll come get me again, just like before. He won't leave me here… he'll never leave me here. I know it."

She cocks her head. "Oh, baby… you mean the one who took you back then, picked you up and carried you out of the flames?" She shakes her head. "I heard him calling for you, but you know what? He didn't seem to be looking all that hard. I mean, there you were, right there, just waiting for me, and he didn't even search."

"Lying bitch," he grates out, and he yelps as she flashes her hand across his guts, clutches weakly at the wound while blood seeps through his fingers. "God. _Don't_."

"Not so brave now, angel boy," she laughs, lays the blade up under his ear. "I could take an ear. Mail it to your nearest and dearest, like they do in all the movies."

He doesn't blink as he looks at her. "He's coming to get me," he whispers unhappily. "I know he is. He'll figure out a way. He did it before."

She sighs out, long-suffering and rueful. "He just stood there by your car, and there you were, not ten yards away in the ditch. I was real lucky seeing where you fell. But he didn't even bother checking the verges. Neither did the other two… they all just stood there and yammered at each other."

"That's a lie, you're lying," he gasps out. "They wouldn't just leave me there… they're looking. I know they are. And you can't hide me from him down here, he'll get a funny feeling about me. He'll find me like before. He won't leave me here."

"Well, why wait?" She smiles a big, wide smile down at him and he flinches minutely. "Cause I got a great idea," she goes on, her drawl lazy. "Why don't I go and fetch Sam here, maybe have him join the party? See how purty he looks when I'm trimming the fat off his bones, maybe hear how loud he can scream when I—"

"No." He shakes his head convulsively. "No!" he sobs out, and his eyes are huge and dazed. "No, that wasn't the deal. Sam isn't part of the deal, you're never having him, you leave him be… we had a deal."

It's a chink in the armor, and she hums out in satisfaction. "I guess we'll see." She holds up her knife, tilts the blade in the flashlight beam. "Can you think of any games we can play to pass the time while we wait and see if anyone comes to rescue you?" she simpers. "Are you going to behave, so I don't have to go and fetch Sammy to watch us play?"

He stares at her, and his eyes are anxious as she slices into his tee and rips the fabric away. She plays her eyes along his skin, sees a darker shadowing of pigment on his shoulder, and lays her palm against it, stretching out her fingers. "That's so pretty," she whispers and she licks her lips, smiles, and wonders how deep it goes. She traces the outline with her blade, digs deep, deeper, and he turns his face away, bites into his right shoulder, stifles his pain and despair as she doodles red patterns on his skin. The muscles jump across his chest and belly, and his lips tremble, but he doesn't make a sound as she drags her knife away from that spot and carves her name on his chest, underlining her script with a flourish.

"My, aren't you a good boy now you're all focused instead of whining and yammering on like you did before when you were hurting," she says admiringly. "We taught you well, him and me." She leans close and he recoils, closes his eyes, as she presses a chaste kiss to his cheek. "You are like us," she breathes. "You always were. You got a murderer's hands, you're a natural born killer. You're my kind. Now sing for me. Sing for me like you always used to back then."

And she and her knife play him like a virtuoso, and they make beautiful music together.

  
As a lead it isn't much, just a scrawled note and a phone number left on a sticky before Coop took off, and Hudak wedges the phone under her chin, wrestles the lid off her anemic looking latte and unscrews the lid of her coffee jar as she taps out the number. She's just stirring in a good-sized extra spoonful of caffeine when she gets a connection and a voice barks back at her.

"Uh, yes – Detective Lansing?"

The man seems to know her, wastes no time in crisply doling out a flood of information, and she sits up straight and listens hard as the tinny voice yacks away on the other end of the line. Dates jump out at Hudak, and she interjects. "Wait, are they're sure about the dates?" _Forensics report_ and, "Can you email it to me?" she interjects again. "Thanks, I appreciate that."

She hangs up, sits and stares at computer monitor in front of her and drifts for a minute. She can't help it, can't help replaying Dean's drunken ramblings in her mind, and she can almost feel his skin under her hands as she smoothed her fingertips across him, marveling at his newly unmarked perfection, and asked if he thought Castiel might do her frown line for her.

He had snuffled and worried _that spot_ on her neck and whispered gentle promises in her ear about slow, lazy, old man sex, _I'm seventy now, Kathleen, have to take it slow and steady, takes me a while to get there_ , and she had flipped him over and sniped back that she was younger than him now, too young for geriatric comfort sex. And she couldn't help herself, she had placed her hand there on the mark, fitting her fingers to the handprint of an angel, as Dean stared darkly up at her. And then he had smiled, whispered, _your eyes are so blue, never really noticed that before_ , as he drew her down to him.

"Kathleen, stop. Stop it."

Hudak rams the heels of her hands up hard against her eyes, and presses her mental pause button.

And then she boots up the computer, clicks on her emails, copies it all over, calls it up onscreen, and hisses out as the faces stare back at her.

She hits print.

  
It's winter here, and the chill burns him deep in his bones, makes his blood run cold in his veins, and his tears stiffen into icicles.

His eyes freeze half-open and he whimpers as he forces them to blink. The sheet ice covering his eyeballs cracks like the great thaw, and he gazes down at his face, reflected back at him in the glassy surface of the ice pit. He tries to hug himself tighter, tries to find some warmth, but the water crept up to his shoulders while he wasn't looking and his arms are frozen solid in the glacier. His head lolls in exhaustion, and he jerks it back upright because he knows that if he lets it fall, his face will freeze where it makes contact.

As he squints into the bluish light he sees the dark-haired man approaching him across the ice.

The man stops, squats down, and his tone is sad. "Didn't you think happy thoughts, Dean?"

"Happy thoughts?" Dean echoes, incredulous. "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate, you fuckin' idiot."

The man translates. "All hope abandon, ye who enter in."

"Yeah, it's on the sign above the gate, you prick," Dean replies. "Happy thoughts? Jesus. I got fuckin' demoted because of you… and can you hear that?" He motions his head at the middle distance, from where music wafts faintly. "The Carpenters. The soundtrack to Hell is the fuckin' _Carpenters_. Christ, if they'd played that first time round I would've cracked on day one."

"Cocytus," says the man. "The river of wailing."

"You don't say," Dean retorts. "Caina, to be exact. Frozen solid by the flapping wings of Lucifer."

"Cain," the man breathes. "Where traitors to blood relatives languish."

Dean feels sudden tears spring, feels them solidify on his frigid cheeks as they trickle out. "I never betrayed my family," he chokes out. I did a lot of crap, Cas, but being a traitor, that's just… unless it's because of my dad. Do you think it's because of my dad? Because I didn't say yes to the reaper before my dad made his deal with Yellow Eyes? Is that it? Am I a traitor to my dad, is that why—"

"No, no," the dark-haired man is saying, and he touches his hand to Dean's chin, gentle where Lilith was cruel, tilts his face up. His eyes are intense, fixed on Dean's own. "Dean, listen to me. This is not real, this is—"

"Of course it's real," Dean croaks. "Look around you. How can it not be real? And you knew I was headed back here, you sonofabitch, and you let me hope I was free and clear, and—"

"Dean, Dean, Dean." The man cuts in again, tumbling out the words. "This isn't real, this isn't Hell… you're dreaming. Listen to me. You're dreaming. Listen to me. Time is short but don't give up." He's wavering before Dean's eyes, going transparent, and his stare turns frantic but Dean can still hear his voice.

"I'll be here with you. Think happy thoughts, Dean."

He's leaving, and, "No!" Dean pleads, fighting to break his arms free of the ice. "Wait a minute! Don't go, I'm supposed to come with you… wait a minute!"

But the man is mist now. "I'll be here with you," he murmurs again as he fades. "Think happy thoughts, Dean. See past Hell, so you will not wake so abruptly."

"Don't you think I'm trying to?" Dean cries. "I've spent years trying to see past Hell."

"There is no try, Dean," the man's voice whispers tenderly in his ear, and Dean thinks he might even feel the man's breath, feel his lips ghost the skin of his cheek. "There is only do. Or do not."

And then the man is gone, and Dean screams his desperation into the shadows, and something else too, some germ of knowledge he can't quite parse but he knows it's important. "Come back. Cas, come back. There are ghosts here. You listen to _me_. It's important. There are ghosts here, the ghosts of my life. It means something."

He stops, listens.

There is nothing except the sound of distant guitar music.

  
He yelps as he jerks awake, sucks in his agony and rests a shaking hand on his belly.

"Death by a thousand fuckin' cuts," he mutters hoarsely, because he hollered his wrecked throat raw again along to her tinkling laughter.

He's flat on his back, feels weak and ill. He can feel dried blood crusting his abdomen, can feel himself shaking. His right arm pulls painfully at its tether and he stretches his fingers out, wraps them around something cold, panting out his exertion as he braces on it and hauls himself more upright. A bolt of pain shoots up his leg to his hip as he maneuvers and he grits his teeth to stop his cry from making it past his lips. When he plants his left hand on the floor for leverage, the bolt of agony that rockets through his shoulder has his head spinning and his arm buckling. He breathes through it, waits for the rolling pain to subside before glancing at the joint to see that the skin is shredded, just so much ground meat glistening under a thin shaft of light from above.

Dean follows the light, focuses on the bright vertical crack of yellow that is its source. "Cas," slips out of him, and he can't hold onto his despair. "Why is it taking so long? Please don't leave me here. It's just Limbo, for Christ's sake. It isn't too far to come, it's just the fuckin' _edge_. Soon it'll be too late."

He listens but there's nothing, just the familiar crash bang of the _cussin' weather_. "It won't take as long this time," he whispers out to the gloom. A broken giggle bubbles up out of his throat and then turns into something like a gasp, followed by a sob. "It won't take thirty years this time, Cas. You need to come get me before it's too late."

And even though Dean can feel dread gnaw at his guts, can feel himself begin to sink beneath the surface of his own growing panic and distress, there is comfort in the knowledge that he won't fight, that he'll jump right off that rack the very first time Alastair whispers in his ear, and pick up whatever ax, cleaver, knife or straight razor is to hand before laying into them with a smile on his face and a song in his heart.

 _But Alastair is dead_.

It comes out of nowhere, the thought, and, "Isn't he?" Dean rasps out. "Cas. Isn't he? Dead?"

Something isn't right, but Lilith turned his brain into a jigsaw puzzle with thousands of tiny pieces and then she upended it all onto the floor, and as hard as Dean tries to piece it all back together from the outside edges in, vital parts are missing, holes in the picture, _the faces, always the faces_.

"I don't know where I am," he croaks. "Where am I? I don't know where I am. How can Alastair be here when he's dead?"

He leans his head against his captive arm, whistles out a breath as the cigarette burns tracking it flare, and he blows out air on the ones he can reach, feels them cool slightly. "Cas, you bastard," he murmurs, wiping his tears and snot off on the sleeve of his tee. "Help me. Please. You're the only one who can. And I'm so tired."

And in his mind, Dean hears the echo of a voice he thinks he might have dreamed, distant, he can only just hear it as he strains to listen. "Think happy thoughts," he breathes out to himself. "Happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts, Dean."

  
"So he said she'd been looking for him for years, and that she knew him from the amulet?" Bobby says, scrubbing at his cap and finally pulling it off and frisbying it over onto the bed.

 _It doesn't make sense_ , Sam thinks, and he voices his skepticism aloud. "That doesn't fit in with what we know, it hasn't been years since he got out of there. Unless she's thinking in terms of Hell years?"

"And you say he's in Cocytus?" Bobby cuts in.

Castiel's blue stare is flat as he flicks it between them both. "So it would seem. In this dream, anyway. In the previous dream he was in Violence. He compared it to Lawrence of Arabia."

There's no way, and, "Violence?" Sam asks hoarsely. "But how is that even—"

"Lawrence of Arabia?" Bobby chimes in simultaneously, cutting Sam off.

"The seventh circle," the angel clarifies patiently. "Inner ring. A vast, fiery desert where the violent are cast and the—"

"Sodomites wander," Sam interrupts. "If he's dreaming all of this, if it's his memories from when he was really in Hell… then Violence is _real_? And Cocytus too?" He can't help glancing over at his brother's jacket, still hanging where Dean left it, remembers Dean's voice, low and barely controlled, _ice, and blizzards, a frozen lake of guilt, and shame, and everlasting contempt_.

"In a manner of speaking," Castiel replies matter-of-factly. "Hell is in many ways a construct of the mind that manifests in the way we imagine it. And likewise, the damned manifest in Hell the way they see themselves there. To put it simply."

Bobby barks out an unintelligible expletive. "To put it simply? Jesus wept. You mean it's a figment of the imagination?"

Castiel shrugs. "Yes and no. For the dammed, Hell is complete destruction into a state of non-being. Yet they exist there and it is a reality to them."

The old man cocks his head, unimpressed. "Are you jerkin' my chain, son?" he spits acidly, before he goes on to voice Sam's own incredulity. "Because you'll need to get up earlier in the morning to get one over on me. Even I've read the Divine Comedy. Violence, Cocytus, all that circles crap – it's _fiction_."

The angel's expression switches from impassive to vaguely affronted. "Although Dante depicted what is largely a medieval concept of Hell, he was essentially right," he says defensively. "His visions were, in fact, divine. God-given. So no, Bobby, I'm not jerking your chain. Given that this is hardly the time to wax philosophical. Is it?"

Bobby glowers for a minute before turning on his heel and stalking back to his seat.

Sam leans over where he sits, dips his head down low for a few seconds and deep breathes his roiling gut into submission as his brother's words whisper their halting way through his memory again. "Dean must have read it too," he says. "The Inferno. Remember what he said, Bobby? About Hell? About how he crammed for it. Learned all he could. If he's dreaming it that way, it must have been his version of Hell." On the heels of his despondency, there is a spike of anger and Sam hears his tone change to sharp and resentful as he looks up. "Tell me something, Castiel. Why does God keep telling us we'll be saved if we repent when it isn't true?"

Castiel stands and looks at him, silent, reserved, grave, _stoic_ , in a way that, oddly, makes Sam think of his brother. _Loyalty_ , that's what it is, he realizes. Unswerving loyalty, the kind that made Castiel fight off demons for forty years to get to Dean even though he was infected by the Pit, remote from God and starved of His light. The kind of loyalty that keeps Dean orbiting him, even though Dean knows damn well Sam sealed his dying wish inside a mental time capsule, buried it, and started plotting his revenge practically the day after New Harmony.

"I pushed too hard, and your brother woke," the Castiel deflects, his voice distant. "It was necessary to ease our distress."

" _Our_ distress?" Sam echoes, and he notices that look in the angel's eyes again, the one that is so reminiscent of Dean's thousand-yard stare.

"It isn't easy," Castiel murmurs, and for an instant his rigid composure is gone, and he seems to slump. "Hell is fear, despair. Hell is a hopelessness that is beyond your capacity to imagine. Seeing him like that again… it isn't easy."

The moment is strangely intimate, and Sam finds he has to break it. He clears his throat harshly, shoots a look at Bobby. "That's why I should go in. We could get the dream root. Give it a try at least. So I can talk to him."

Bobby shrugs. "At this point, kid, I don't—"

"It's a bad idea."

Castiel's tone is suddenly icy, and Sam swings his head around in concert with Bobby, feels irritation spike. "It's not your decision to make," he snaps. "If I think it's—"

"Would you torture your brother further by killing him again?" Castiel cuts in, and even if his tone is abruptly icy, his eyes are flashing fire, a _warning_. "Or by having him kill you?"

Sam flounders. "What do you mean by that? Killing me, what does that mean?"

Castiel's voice softens again. "You weren't the only one wielding the knife in Hell, Sam. Alastair saw to it that your brother suffered untold torment and died at your hands in myriad ways. For thirty years. And then Dean climbed off the rack." He pauses briefly. "He was a capable apprentice. And you were his learning curve."

The silence stretches between all of them, numbing, paralyzing, horrifying silence, and Sam has no words. _Because there aren't words_ , he thinks.

"I know you mean well, Sam," Castiel continues. "But as yet, your brother hasn't dreamed of the times he worked on you, and I—" He stops suddenly, and his eyes flick away for a moment and then back, and they're bright, full. "Pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, Sam."

And Sam remembers then, the conversation that seems so long ago, and the angel's sorrow as he spoke, sorrow that aches in his voice now. "You kept that from Dean when you brought him back," he whispers. "And you think that if I show up there without him being in control of it, it could trigger his memory."

"It's possible," Castiel replies gravely. "And if it does…" He pauses, and in the beat that follows, his somber expression suddenly falters, going as unguarded as Sam has ever seen it. In that instant, everything Sam might have suspected about Castiel's feelings for his brother are written clearly in the angel's eyes. "I fear he would be further damaged by this revelation. And I will not risk him in this way."

Sam catches a glimpse of Bobby's face behind Castiel, sees that the old man's expression is itself stricken. "I feel so fucking helpless," he grates out. "Even if he isn't dead and it isn't real, he thinks it is. And he's alone."

Castiel sighs, long and heavy. "He isn't alone, Sam. When he dreams, I will be there with him."

Sam registers that the angel's tone is final, that he's telling them that he'll stop Sam if necessary, and his vision blurs as the reality of Dean's Hell plays out before him: the brother he feared would turn into something else destroying what remained of him in the Pit, until the day he said yes and followed it up by using his own hands to do what he dreaded most. And hot on its tail comes something else, a dawning comprehension of what Castiel meant by _our distress_ , an understanding of the angel's loyalty, the flat look that softens only for Dean. It's devotion, Sam realizes, because Castiel was there, _is_ there, he shared, _is_ sharing, and he has seen Dean and knows him in ways Sam never will, and it has Sam wondering if it isn't the Bloods and the Crips at all, if it's been nothing more than jealousy that fuels his edginess in the angel's presence.

A few feet away, Bobby clears his throat. "He's right Sam," the old man says wearily. "Happy thoughts, remember? Seeing you in what he thinks is Hell could mess with your brother even more."

It falls quiet for a few minutes more, until Castiel breaks the silence. "Dean said something as he woke, something about ghosts being there with him, the ghosts of his life. He said it was important."

"The ghosts of his life?" Bobby scratches his head, his expression puzzled.

Castiel nods. "The ghosts of his life. He said it meant something. He was most insistent." He glances back to Sam. "I assumed it was a message. I hoped you would know the meaning."

It's cryptic enough to spike another burst of irritation in Sam, and he throws up his hands, helpless. "Is it part of the torture that you end up talking in riddles?"

"Probably the dream thing," Bobby suggests. "Dreams can be a message. And a body does all sorts of weird stuff in dreams. God knows, Dean's capable of anything when he's having one of his night terrors."

"The ghosts of his life," Castiel muses, and he stares at some invisible spot on the wall. "Perhaps it isn't literal ghosts. Perhaps he is referring to memories?"

"Lilith is a memory," Bobby offers.

It focuses Sam suddenly, has him backtracking through the conversation. "But not from his life, not really. Why did he say the ghosts of his life? And why did he say she knew him because of his amulet? I took it off him after New Harmony… how would Lilith know about it? Would it have manifested in Hell if it wasn't on his body?"

Castiel frowns. "It seemed that he was trying to tell me something, something he might not fully realize in his conscious state if he's injured or confused. Perhaps that's why it was an indirect reference. But if the ghosts are memories, then perhaps it follows that he knows who has him, knows them from life. Not from death."

Sam shakes his head. "But it doesn't fit with the theory. It _is_ Lilith, it has to be her. That's why all the victims look like him, and that's why he's cloaked. She's hiding him, hiding herself too."

"We don't know for certain if Lilith possesses the knowledge to cloak herself and whoever is with her from the Host," Castiel replies. "Although she is a demon, there's no evidence she is well-versed in the dark magic needed to achieve this." He pauses for a moment, tilts his head and stares Sam right in the eyes, and despite his schooled indifference his tone is heavy with meaning when he continues. "In fact, I can think of only one demon who is qualified."

Sam swallows, knows he colors because he can feel the heat flush his cheeks, and he looks down at his boots for the span of another dragged-out, awkward silence even as his mind insists that he's right.

"Dean did have his doubts it was her," Bobby offers then. "It isn't beyond the realms of possibility this is someone else who knows your brother, Sam. It could be that some other hunter who knows Dean got out of Hell, and that some powerful mojo must've had a hand in that, is trying to—"

And, _fuck this doubt_ , and, "It's Lilith," Sam snaps. "Who else would even know they needed to cloak him from Cas? It's not exactly common knowledge Dean's been touched by an angel. And—"

He's cut off by a tap on the door, spins and strides over to unbolt it. Hudak is standing there holding up two, no, three printouts, and the faces smiling back at Sam could be his brother if he added twenty pounds and a few years.

"David Lerman," Hudak says, without preamble. "Erstwhile resident of Orr. And Ethan Sturgis, late of Virginia. Their bodies were found in May and July respectively. And we've got another possible, a John Doe who showed up in March, up near the Canadian border. Might be something, might be nothing."

"But that's before," Sam hears Bobby saying from miles away. "That was before Dean came back. Lilith had no reason then."

 _But Dean is cloaked_ , Sam thinks frantically, and now all he can hear is the clamor in his head, _I can think of only one demon who is qualified_ , and all he can see is his brother scowling down at his soiled clothing as they walked back to the motel from the bar. He stumbles to the corner, grabs his duffel and upends it, starts rifling through his gear, and as he does so his eyes are caught by his brother's worn, filthy jeans tossed in the corner. And the pieces slot into place, _we need to do laundry_ , and, "No," groans out of Sam as Bobby pulls him up and swings him round.

"It was in my jeans," he babbles, desperate. "I didn't think. It didn't occur to me… fuck, Bobby, he must have borrowed them, he didn't have anything clean. And it was in the pocket."

"What?" the old man is saying, his voice rising with alarm. "What was in your pocket, Sam? What are you—"

"Hexbag," Castiel cuts in frostily, from across the room. "The extra-crunchy version, I suspect."


	15. Gone Fishing

The tapping on the door is soft, but insistent enough to grate on Sam's nerves, and he clamps his hands to his ears to shut it out, pushes himself further back into his corner, because the horror, the shame, the _guilt_ , is overwhelming, so overwhelming he couldn't look at Bobby's white, appalled face one second longer before he crashed into the bathroom and slammed the door. He can't seem to get to the top of his breath so he's feeling spaced out and dizzy, and maybe he even needs to breathe into a paper bag to get back on terms with his oxygen requirements before he keels over on to the tile floor.

He's so lost in himself he doesn't even notice Hudak come in and sit next to him, arms wrapped around her knees.

"Dean told me he thought you had a turbo-powered hexbag," she offers quietly. "He said he thought you were using it to hide from Castiel when you were with Ruby."

Sam keeps staring, doesn't reply.

"It's not really your fault, Sam," Hudak says.

It's unconvincing enough that Sam rounds on her. "Of course it's my fucking fault, and you know it. I kept the damn thing so I could sneak around behind his back without Cas ratting me out. And then I wasn't careful enough with it. Explain to me how that isn't my fault."

Hudak clears her throat, cautious. "Well. When you put it like that." She's quiet for a minute before she continues. "Look, Sam. I'm not going to pretend I have a clue about what's been going on with you and Dean, but I know what it's like to lose my brother and I know that grief and loss can make people do things that might be—"

"Totally fucking stupid, and totally the opposite of what he asked me to do," Sam cuts in stiffly, and he sees her raise her eyebrows in his peripheral vision.

"I was going to say misguided."

"He said he didn't think it was Lilith and I didn't listen even though I know damn well his heart gets it right as often as my head does," Sam mutters. "I haven't been looking at this clearly since day one, Kathleen. And I bullied him into going along with me. Christ. If I could just—"

"Old man Bender wasn't trying to escape when I shot him," Hudak says suddenly.

It's so random that Sam pulls up short, his head whipping around.

Hudak shrugs. "He was right where you left him," she continues quietly. "Down, winged and defenseless. And I plugged that sonofabitch right between the eyes as he looked up at me. I did it because he killed my brother. He told me he did it because it was fun." She pauses, takes a deep breath. "Maybe you think I don't understand, Sam, but I do. And you know something?"

Sam doesn't reply, waits for her to keep going.

"Putting that bastard out of my misery didn't change anything," she murmurs, her eyes going distant. "It didn't bring my brother back, and I sure as hell didn't feel any kind of catharsis from killing him. I feel ashamed of it, that I let myself fall to his level. But here's the thing. I would do it again. Every damn time, and fuck due process." She stops, laughs wryly. "I've never even told your brother that. In fact it's the first time I've even acknowledged it out loud. But it seems to me you need to know, because reading between the lines here I think we both know that whatever you might have done?"

Sam shoots her another look at the question.

"You'd do it again too," she picks up. "If you thought it was the only option. Which we already know you do." She sharpens her voice then, makes it harder. "So what's the point of hiding in the bathroom and wallowing in guilt, Sam?"

Sam scrubs a hand through his hair. "But I don't know what to—"

"You fix it," she retorts. "We know Dean is alive and not in Hell, and now we know Lilith isn't involved. But that doesn't change the fact that all of the victims looked like him." She pushes up, pokes his boot hard with her foot. "Dean is the clue in this, Sam. You know him better than anyone, so you might know who the perp is. Dean is close by somewhere. And there isn't much time."

Sam looks up, and her face is weary, drawn with anxiety, distress, misery, but her eyes are bright and it suddenly occurs to him that they're the same penetrating blue as Castiel's.

"We've got a case to work, Sam," she says tersely. "You're not going to find your brother sitting on your ass in the bathroom feeling sorry for yourself."

Sam nods slowly. "Where do we start?"

  
The woods were never so tranquil as they are today, all dappled shade, wildflowers swaying in the breeze, and the rustle of the treetops whispering endearments in Dean's ears. It's an enchanted forest, and he half expects to see nauseatingly cute Disney chipmunks pop out of the bushes.

He casts off, hears the plop of the lure as it lands in the water, secures the fishing pole to the rod holder and leans back in his chair. The warmth of the sun on his face is soporific, and Dean rests one boot on his tackle basket, watches the water through lazy, half-closed eyes, and imagines the life teeming below the still surface, because there's a fuckin' Zen to fishing, isn't that what Kathleen said? Something mystical, communing with nature like he's taking the pulse of the planet, and if he's lucky it might even heal his soul. And he's in such a good mood he reckons today might just be a catch and release day, and maybe he doesn't even care if nothing bites because it isn't about the fish, it's about the fish- _ing_.

He dozes, but he can still hear the footfalls behind him. He knows he should snap alert, into defense mode, but some other feeling tells him he doesn't have to be afraid. When the hand rests gentle on his shoulder, it's accompanied by _something_ , some buzz of static that makes his heart leap in his chest and thrills his nerve endings for a fraction of a second.

"Are the fish biting for you, Dean?"

"Nope," he murmurs, and he doesn't even open his eyes because he knows he's safe. "Not a problem, Cas. It isn't about the fish, it's about the fish- _ing_. There's a Zen to it."

There is a smile in Castiel's tone when he answers. "I'm glad to see you looking so well, my friend."

Dean snorts. "Here. Not there." He mulls what the angel said, sniffs. "Are we? Friends?" He hears the scurr of fabric, cracks an eye open to see that Castiel is taking off his trenchcoat and folding it into a messy bundle.

He blinks down at Dean and the smile Dean heard in his voice curls his lips up. "I believe we are friends," he says, and then he drops the coat onto the grass next to Dean, lowers himself down and sits on it cross-legged. He rolls up his shirtsleeves, plants his elbows on his knees, braces his chin on his hands, and stares at the river.

"I'm dreaming," Dean informs him helpfully. "I took your advice and thought about happy things." He stares out at the float drifting lazily in the current. "Though I didn't expect to end up here. My last happy thought before I fell asleep was a Hooters in Baton Rouge. There was this one waitress there and she had these really big, I mean, _huge_ …" He holds out his hands, cups them in his imagination, thinks he might go cross-eyed.

"You aren't in Hell, Dean," Cas cuts in placidly. "In fact we're fairly sure Lilith isn't actually responsible for your disappearance."

Dean shakes his head. "She told me she was Lilith. And given that she's getting a big kick out of slicing me up, I'm inclined to go with her on this one, Cas. No offense."

The angel is quiet for a minute, and then, "Are you badly hurt?"

Pulling his brows together, Dean gives it some consideration. "My guts are still inside me," he says. "Just. But I'm bleeding like a stuck pig. So it doesn't look too good in the long term. I guess she'll just magic me whole again when the old ticker gives out. And my leg is broken. Hurts like a bitch." He stops, swallows thickly. "I've had worse," he adds softly. "But my shoulder. It's – well. She… uh. She cut me up some." He throws a shifty look down to where Castiel is sitting, sees the angel's eyes flick sideways too.

"What?" Castiel prods after a few seconds.

"The mark," Dean starts self-consciously. "You know. The handprint."

"What about it?"

"Is that the connection?" Dean blurts out. "I mean – if anything happened to it. Would that mean you wouldn't, uh—"

"Get a funny feeling about you?" Cas asks dryly.

Dean nods, finds he's feeling like an idiot for growing attached to the mark, the proof that good things can happen and that he deserved to be saved.

"My real mark is on your soul, Dean," the angel replies simply.

 _Oh_. "Right. " After pondering that for a minute, Dean slants his eyes over again.

"What?"

"Uh. It's just that I thought souls were really… _tiny_. For some reason. Not big enough for a whole handprint. That's, like, as big as my liver."

"Roughly the size of a football and weighing about three pounds," Castiel supplies. "Your liver, that is. Your soul is an ontological reality distinct from your body. Although it is your immortal essence and as such is integrally connected to your body."

Dean rolls his eyes. "Yeah. You know, I was just thinking that myself. Word for word." His tone is mocking, playful even, and Castiel studies his face for a moment, grins almost shyly, like he still isn't used to the expression, before he directs his eyes back towards the water.

Dean turns his attention the same way, scrunches up his nose as he reflects on the weirdness of it all. "Man, dreams have some fucked-up shit in them," he murmurs. "But at least this one is peaceful."

"Then perhaps you should stay in this dream for longer, Dean," Castiel says softly. "For some peace."

Dean sighs as his knee starts to jiggle. "I wouldn't have to if you weren't taking your own sweet time coming to get me, Cas," he complains. "If it isn't because she cut up the mark, is it because she already broke the last seal? So I don't matter any more? I know you said you never would have been sent and all that crap. But man, I really thought—" His voice cracks as his throat suddenly swells and dries with the sense of betrayal. "I know you didn't write the rulebook, but I really hoped you wouldn't just leave me here when I came back. It's pathetic, I know. But I really hoped you'd have the sac to do something about it."

Castiel huffs out. "But you aren't in Hell, Dean," he reiterates patiently. "You're confused, and your dreams of Hell are confusing you further."

Dean thinks on it for about ten seconds, scowls. "I'm not convinced," he says pointedly. "I mean. It's definitely her. Definitely. I think."

"Definitely you _think_?"

"Yeah. I mean – I just know her. Know it's her."

"Then she's using the same host?"

Dean throws up in his mouth at the thought of her, that simpering grade-schooler with her party dress, and ribbons, and rosebud mouth. "No, thank fuck," he clarifies. "Creepy little brat. What is it about little girls that age? Totally Audrey fuckin' Rose." He shivers, and then reminds himself of the bright side. "Alastair's pretty hands off this trip, though."

Castiel looks sharply up at him, frowns. "You think Alastair is here with you?"

"Yeah," Dean confirms. "Lilith doesn't cook too well, so he bought me a sub."

"A sub… _marine_?"

The angel stares up owlishly, and Dean can't help reaching out to ruffle his friend's hair. "Moron," he says affectionately. "Not ocean-going. All the meats. Subway."

Castiel's expression stays blank.

"It's a sandwich," Dean elaborates. "From Subway. A take-out food franchise. Tad healthy for me but what the fuck, beggars can't be choosers."

A reaction then, as Castiel tilts his head, thoughtful. "I see. Though I don't recall seeing any take-out food franchises in Hell when I was searching for you, Dean." He raises an eyebrow. "And I don't imagine Alastair was in the habit of providing a healthy lunch. In any case, Alastair is dead. Another clue perhaps? To the fact you aren't actually in Hell?"

Dean feels defensive suddenly, defensive about Hell, and that's all kinds of _fuckin' ridiculous_. "Of course I'm in Hell," he splutters. "How can it not be Hell? You were there, you saw me in the desert, the ice… I'm trussed up, and chunks are being cut off me. By Lilith. And Alastair is here, I heard her call him that. How is this not Hell?"

"But we have—"

"I am the fuckin' authority here, Cas," Dean cuts in loftily. "I mean, Jesus. I of all people should know. I might add." He lifts a finger as Castiel starts to reply, stabs the air. "And don't say _in fact you did add_."

The angel pulls up short, seems taken aback, so Dean rattles on.

"And while we're on the subject, you haven't answered my question. Why haven't you come to get me? She can't hide me from you down here. Why the fuck is it taking so long?" He leans down closer, makes his voice spiteful and cold. "Unless you are leaving me here to rot for all eternity, you spineless dick. I can't believe you'd do that after all that crap about God having work for me. Jesus, it makes me want to—"

"Enough!" the angel cuts in, testy, maybe even aggressively, and Dean bites his tongue like he's told, because there's a second there when he thinks about Castiel's threat to throw him back into Hell.

He can't help a hollow cackle at the irony. "Or what?" he snorts. "It's not as if you can smite me back to Hell, is it?"

Castiel throws out his hands, fingers extended and rigid, chops at the air, and makes an undefined noise of frustration. "You try my patience," he growls. "At a time like this, when all could be lost."

"Well, you threatened me," Dean points out childishly.

"It was… _I_ was – under duress," Castiel says after a moment of silence. "I regret saying what I did. And I apologize." He takes a deep breath, and when he continues his tone is as intense as it has ever been. "And I would never, _will_ never, forsake you Dean. I would never knowingly or willingly countenance your return to Hell, and if it ever comes to pass I will find you again. I won't leave you there. Even if it means – _disobedience_."

Dean stares down at him, takes a few deep breaths, and finds that he has to break eye contact, turn this conversation away from something as heavy as he can see in Castiel's gaze. "Disobedience," he snarks. "Sounds like bad porn. Will there be convent school uniforms? And spanking?"

Castiel rolls his eyes as expertly as Dean ever has. "You aren't in Hell, Dean," he repeats, calm again. "That's why I can't find you. We believed Lilith had you and was cloaking you, but that isn't the case."

Dean rubs at his jaw, suddenly weary. "Then why?" he asks. "Why don't you come get me? Are you waiting for me to beg, is that it?"

"Listen to me, Dean, and try to stay in the dream," Castiel says, and now he's intense again, urgent too. "You're cloaked, but it isn't anything to do with Lilith. You borrowed Sam's clothing. His jeans, I believe. His hexbag is in the pocket, and—"

"Let me guess," Dean sighs. "It's the extra-crunchy one. Christ. When am I going to catch a fuckin' break?"

"Are you able to remove the hexbag from your person, Dean?" Castiel asks. "If you can do this, I'll be able to find you."

Dean scowls. "What part of Lilith trying to cut off the handprint do you not get, Cas? It hurts to move my arm. It hurts to do _anything_."

"You've had worse," the angel retorts bluntly.

It's an echo of Dean's words that he can't really deny, so he nods grudgingly in concession. "I guess it might feel better after I've slept on it," he grouches. "But even if the spirit is willing, if the flesh is weak, Cas, it won't matter how much I might want to move my arm. If I can't, I can't."

"But you'll try, Dean," Castiel insists. "Yes?"

"Yeah, I'll try," Dean tells him, and then, pissily, "Though I'll stake money on the damn thing being in the back right pocket."

Castiel nods, seems satisfied, and they sit in an easier silence for a few minutes until the angel speaks again. "Your captor," he starts. "You said you feel that you know her. We also think this may be likely, whoever she and her companion are. When I visited you in your dreams before, you said something… you said you were surrounded by the ghosts of your life. Memories, perhaps?"

Dean shrugs. "The ghosts of my life blow wilder than the wind. It's from a song." He shivers. "About regret, failure. Maybe memories. Yeah." He rubs at his brow. "She seems familiar. She seems like Lilith."

"And Alastair?" Castiel fishes. "You said he was hands off. That doesn't sound like Alastair."

"I guess," Dean agrees doubtfully. "Maybe he's just letting her go first this time."

"You need to try to remember who they really are," Castiel presses. "And find out where they are holding you."

Dean snorts. "Yeah, I'll put that on the end of my to-do list." He yawns, reaches up, luxuriates in being able to stretch tense muscles, work out the cricks. "If this is a dream I guess I'll wake up at some point," he ventures then. "Honestly, I don't really want to. Wake up, I mean. It's better here."

"It's unavoidable," Castiel says quietly.

"But if it isn't her, if it isn't Lilith…" Dean starts, cautious. "Then that means that if I, uh, didn't wake. I mean, if I – you know. That she, she – couldn't bring me back. Make me whole again."

"That's right."

Dean swallows hard. "And if that happens, Cas. If I don't wake. The _deal_. Where will I go? I mean… when you said that, about not leaving me there. Did you—"

"Yes," his companion says earnestly. "I did mean it. I can't give you assurances about whether the deal still holds, because I don't know. I haven't been told. But I meant what I said, Dean. I won't abandon you there. I _will_ come for you."

There's so much in Castiel's eyes, like a few moments before, and Dean finds he can't turn away from it this time, it's too profound, too much compassion, too much feeling in the words, too much care when he knows he doesn't deserve it. But even if he can't turn away from it, he can still detour around it. "This is all your fuckin' fault, you know," he bitches sulkily. "If you and your bro Uriel hadn't threatened Sam, he wouldn't have been sneaking around deep undercover in the first place."

Castiel stares up at him, raises an eyebrow. "I believe that's what you generally refer to as a reach," he says thinly.

Dean starts a reply, finds he's yelping, because shrilling agony is screaming through his shoulder, the pain boiling him from the inside out. He feels like's he's being peeled open there, cauterized maybe, and suddenly he's flat on his back, sweat and tears running down his face and the light is cutting in and out.

"You're waking… Dean."

Castiel is right in front of him now, translucent like before, but his eyes are luminous. "Try to remember, Dean. The hexbag. You need to try to get it away from you. Don't forget…"

Dean reaches out, tries to grip the trenchcoat. "Don't go, don't leave me here by myself, Cas… she's burning off the—Cas! Tell Sam! Tell him it isn't his fault, the hexbag, Cas, tell him I know it isn't his fault—"

He wakes to the flaring agony of his flesh being sheared off, the tender skin of his shoulder quaking under Lilith's ministrations, and her hair tickling his face.

  
"Okay, we have this cluster of victims, all after September," Hudak sums up as she tapes the two latest printouts to the board. "And we have David Lerman and Ethan Sturgis, both prior to September," she continues as she sidesteps to a corkboard with a map stapled to it. She pushes brightly colored thumbtacks into a map of the area, glances over at Sam. "Still using paper here," she says. "No fancy computer software like you must be used to in DC, Agent Roth."

Sam smiles weakly, shaking his head.

Coop rummages around on his desk, reaches over to hand Hudak another sheet. "Might as well get this guy up there," he suggests. "I'm still thinking he's the key to this, even if he is dead."

Sam knows it's the picture of Dean, and he feels the knot of tension behind his eyes pull tighter, rubs a knuckle hard across his brow and down to the bridge of his nose to ease the headache that threatens. He forces himself to stare at the map, tells himself there's a clue smack bang in the middle of it, buried treasure, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He keeps his gaze fixed on it as Hudak silently tapes the picture up there too, higher than the others and separate.

"My gut is telling me this guy links all the others," Coop is saying, as he flicks through the file. "Jesus. He was a one-man crime wave. What a piece of work. Fucking psychopath."

Sam pushes up, scrapes the chair back on the floor loudly and aggressively, and the big man glances idly up at him as he strides up to the whiteboard, gazes at the map. It's level with his eyes, middle or thereabouts of the line of three tacks meandering down the map towards the cluster of red and pink that marks Duluth. _Hibbing_ , and the memory makes Sam shudder reflexively.

"Finally got the file on the John Doe too," Coop is saying from behind him. "International Falls. I left a message with some guy – says he knows you and he'll call you back. Gamble? Joe or James. Some J name."

"International Falls?" Hudak chips in. "James Gamble… Yeah, I know him. It might save us jumping through all the hoops."

Sam feels like a damned fifth wheel here if he's honest, and he sways disconsolately in his dress shoes, gazes at that one word on the map until he feels a prickling sensation between his shoulders, the hair on the back of his neck cresting upright, the feeling of being watched. He spins, nervous suddenly, gets the usual sensation of air wafting by his face as the angel materializes and almost simultaneously touches his fingertip to Coop's forehead, cupping the big man's several chins as he slumps bonelessly forward onto his desk.

"Was that really necessary?" Hudak snaps icily, and Castiel cocks his head at her.

"Yes," he says curtly, and turns to Sam, continuing without missing a beat. "I met with your brother under more fortunate circumstances this time, Sam. In the dream, at least. He was fishing, and we—"

"Fishing?" Hudak interrupts. "You told him to think happy thoughts and he dreamed about fishing?"

"Yes… he told me there's a Zen to it."

Sam glances over at her, sees that her eyes are suspiciously bright as she stares at the angel, and she catches his look, blinks hard, and jerks her head over at the other detective. "I already have to listen to him complain about his knees," she complains. "Now I'm going to have to listen to him complain about his sluggish bowels."

Sam gapes distractedly at her for a minute and she raises her eyebrows.

"The finger," she barks. "It gives you constipation. Didn't Dean tell you?" She sits down heavily, palms her face. "And no, I can't believe I'm talking about bowel movements to an angel of the Lord either. This is totally surreal."

Castiel looks from Hudak to Sam and back again. "In fact, he told me he wasn't thinking of fishing when he fell asleep," he offers. "He was thinking of a Hooters in Baton Rouge, and specifically of a waitress with particularly large—"

"Does he know where he is?" Sam almost shouts, his voice high and thin. "Does he know who has him?"

"He concedes that the ghosts of his life may be memories," Castiel snaps back. "Regrets. But he's convinced that it's Lilith who has him, Lilith and Alastair. I attempted to dissuade him but he may not remember. And he doesn't seem to know where he's being held, but he mentioned that they brought food, from a Subway."

Sam swallows dryly. "Did you manage to tell him about the hexbag before he woke?" he mutters, and his hope is tarnished by a numb anxiety, because while Dean might have had some gut feeling he was angel-proofing himself when the need arose, he didn't _know_.

"Yes – although his injuries may mean it's difficult for him to retrieve—"

"His injuries?" Sam yelps almost simultaneously with Hudak. "Where is he hurt? How bad is it? Why the fuck didn't you say anything before?"

"The other dreams lasted only minutes before he woke," Castiel says. "It was easier to communicate with him this time because he was at peace. That's the way it works." He shrugs. "I didn't write the rulebook."

Sam clutches at the air, takes deep breaths. "Okay. So how badly is he hurt?"

"He thinks his leg may be broken," Castiel says briskly, and his voice is speeding up, tinged with distaste, discomfort maybe. "He's secured in place, and it would seem that whoever has him may be…" He pauses for a second. "Harming him."

"You mean torturing him?" Sam asks tightly, and the word leaves him hollow and cut open inside. "How? Exactly?"

Castiel stares at him, seems to be taking deep breaths himself. "Sam. Perhaps these are not details that you need to—"

"Yes. I do need to," Sam says, loud, clear, firmer than he feels inside, where his heart is hop-skip-jumping in his chest.

"He mentioned burning," the angel says then, his face carefully blank, his voice quiet, regretful. "And that he thought Lilith was trying to cut off the mark."

"The handprint?" Hudak cuts in. "That's — I don't even know what that is." She shakes her head. "Except to say it sounds like something our unsub would do."

Sam looks off into the distance, focuses on the clock on the wall over the door, the second hand counting away time. His headache has bloomed into a steel band around his brow, and he feels distant, like he's miles away from this, like he isn't even solid, because the one person who grounds him is out of his reach even though he thought he was holding on tight and never letting go again. Castiel's voice drifts into his consciousness only slowly, in fits and starts, and it turns out the angel has his hand on is arm, is steadying him.

"I said, has Bobby made any progress with the hexbag?" Castiel is saying. "With reversing the spell? Or has your _friend_ done so?"

Sam's mouth flaps soundlessly for a minute, and Hudak catches the ball.

"No he has not," she says, weary and strained, and she shoots Sam a look. "I don't know if Sam's friend has. But we can start taking the sketch around the local fast food outlets. We might get a bead on whoever is helping her." She reaches for her phone as it blares tinnily, and then Castiel is talking to Sam again, deliberate and intense.

"Sam, your brother asked me to give you a message," he's saying, and Sam can feel tension radiating up his arm from where the angel still grasps it, or maybe it's his tension traveling the other way, he doesn't know.

"He told me to tell you that he doesn't blame you for the hexbag… that it wasn't your fault. Sam…" Castiel's expression is suddenly less stern, maybe even kind. "It's not your fault," he repeats. "Dean wants you to know that."

Sam's line of sight skitters away, back to the clock, then back to Castiel, and the angel is blank again, detached, a distance in his eyes that gives nothing away, a distance Sam recognizes and knows well by now because even if Dean doesn't blame him maybe Castiel does, and he knows the angel is damned right to hold him accountable. He's stepping back when Hudak looms up next to them, wide-eyed and jittery with adrenaline.

"That was Jim Gamble," she blurts out. "They're already holding a guy at the pen in Stillwater for one of these murders, the John Doe from International Falls. Jim says they caught him dumping the body. But get this – he's been denying he killed the guy from the moment they picked him up. He says it was his daughter who did it."


	16. Girl from the North Country

Dean is thinking really hard, or at least he's trying to, keeps turning his mental ignition key and hearing the starter motor grind away in there. He has this feeling he's on the cusp of something, and he wishes he could remember what he dreamed because he's full sure the answer was in there somewhere, but every time he thinks the engine is going to catch it dies on him. It makes him think abstractedly of the old Charger he liberated from Bobby's mountain of junkers and tooled around in for a few weeks before his dad bailed on him, how the starter motor jammed every damn time, and he had to stow half a broom handle under the front seat and pop the hood to give the part a wallop with it before he turned the key.

His leg is a dull, throbbing ache now, stretching up his thigh and across his pelvis. His shoulder still screams a torrent of abuse at him every time he moves his head, and it's oozing, suppurating. Every time he tries to walk his fingers around to his back pocket he gasps, shakes with the red hot agony, even as he knits his brows together in frustration because he can't remember why it is he needs to reach the pocket, and thinks he should just damn well stop because it isn't worth the effort. So he slumps back, thinks of the bitchface his brother is going to pull when he catches up with him, because Sam was right and it is that demon bitch just like he thought.

He dozes for a while, caught in the twilight between wake and sleep. He can't drift off properly because every time he does, that reflexive twitch that heralds slumber triggers pain that scorches up his neck and down his arm, and the shock of it has him jerking fully awake, cursing weakly because he thinks she's done some real damage. It occurs to him that she might have sliced through some tendons, and he wonders if he'll ever be able to swing that arm properly again.

When his body finally succumbs to exhaustion she comes to him and rouses him, nibbles her way to his mouth, _cold lips_. "You're gonna melt on my tongue," she murmurs, and Dean is frozen, repelled, wonders what she'd do if he hurled right in her face, wishes he had a full gut so he could.

As she makes her way down his body, Dean stares up at nothing, and his mind keeps grinding unproductively, a rainbow colored spinning pinwheel of doom that makes him think of busty asian beauties dot com crashing Bobby's old iBook so hard and so thoroughly the old man had to pitch it in the trash.

There's something he's supposed to remember, but his shoulder is on fire and his brain is nonresponsive, stuck in an infinite loop, so Dean force-quits.

  
Alastair brings more food and that's just nine kinds of crazy. And Dean can hear this voice in his head, something about lunch, _blue eyes brimming with kindness, compassion, care_.

His voice is weak and hoarse because he's so thirsty, and his tongue is thick and throbbing because somewhere along the line he bit it so hard his teeth met in the middle. But even though he knows damn well it'll end in tears, he asks what the fuck is going on with the food. "What the fuck is going on with the food?"

The meatsuit sits back on his heels, regards Dean for a few seconds, and curls up one side of his mouth. "Told you. She don't cook."

"You never fed me proper food before," Dean slurs back at him.

"Hot damn. Don't take her long to send you guys off the reservation," the meatsuit sniggers, and then he leans in close. "Sub. All the meats. Remember?" He busies himself unwrapping it, poking a straw down into the paper cup. "Got a Cuban this time," he goes on. "Coffee too. Caffeine. She likes it when you guys stay awake."

A moment passes while Dean collects himself. "I mean before that," he croaks out finally. " _Before_. Downstairs."

The meatsuit chuckles, shuffles backwards on his ass, and leans against the wall opposite. "You're losin' it, buddy. There is no before."

There's something so familiar about it, the concept of not having had a before, and Dean blinks hard, tries to work his way through it all, the flow chart in his head, storyboards like they use when they make movies, the what, where, when, and who of his life up until Hell, and the meatsuit nudges his foot with his boot.

"You gonna eat it?"

Dean is thrown for a second. "Eat what?"

"The sub," the meatsuit clarifies. "She'll get real mad if you don't eat, boy. You don't wanna see her mad, believe me."

Dean snorts. "Seen her mad already," he mutters. "Queen bitch."

The meatsuit nods in agreement. "She's a demon alright."

Grinning weakly despite himself, Dean looks down at the sub sitting beside his hand, studies it. A voice rings loud and clear in his head, _I don't imagine Alastair was in the habit of providing a healthy lunch_ , and Dean finds he's laughing, shrill and wild. "Thing of it is, Alastair always bought me lunch," burbles out of him almost merrily. "Just not Cubans, well not the sandwich kind anyway. Real Cubans, some of them must have been anyway. And that sonofabitch fed me bloody chunks of those poor bastards." He can see it now in his memory bank, handfuls of raw, dripping flesh and muscle ripped out of wide-open carcasses, and, "Have some more, Dean," he hollers, "Get that long pig down you, son, that'll grow you big and strong, and I hope you like your meat rare, because—"

Dean's head slams back against the wall with the force of the slap but he still laughs so much tears start pricking the corners of his eyes.

The meatsuit is inches away, eyebrows drawn down, something like concern there, which takes the weird to a whole new level. "Snap out of it," he barks. "Snap the fuck out of it, kid. I done you right, I done all of them right. She might eat it, but I don't, and I never fed it to any of the others either."

"Cut the crap, Alastair," Dean dares to breathe out between pants. "You fed me my own innards plenty of times before, and you aren't fooling me with your—"

"That ain't my name, buddy," the meatsuit cuts in, and he's shaking his head as he butt-shuffles away again. "They all lost it eventually, but Christ, you're the craziest one she's had in here so far, and no doubt about it."

And _fuck_ , if that doesn't get Dean's motor running, finally, and now he's heading for the highway, because that voice is back in his head, _something's not right_. He licks his lips, and he's cautious. "You shouldn't be able to say that."

The meatsuit rolls his eyes. "Say what?"

Dean chews his lip for a second, thinks, _strategy, how the fuck to…?_

"You shouldn't take the name of the Lord in vain." He puts it out there as primly and as damned clearly as he can, despite the fact his voice is a faint rasp now. "But if you accept Jesus Christ as your savior, then you might—"

"Jesus H tapdancin' Christ on the cross," the meatsuit splutters. "What the hell is it about you guys that has you saying your prayers to the Lord our God when it don't do you no good… huh." He laughs it out, manages to calm himself, wipes his eyes. "Jesus Christ don't plan on saving you, buddy, and that's a fact. It's up to her what happens to you."

Bitch-slapped by reality springs to mind, maybe even ass-reamed by fate, as Dean goggles over at the guy.

"You some batshit religious nutjob, buddy?" the man says. "Evangelist or something?"

"Like the Reverend Ike," Dean whispers back. "You aren't Alastair, are you?"

"Nope. Albert. Like the Chairman of the board." The guy must see Dean's baffled expression, because he elaborates. "Ol' blue eyes. Ma was a big fan of Frank Sinatra. Francis Albert, that's me." He sniffs derisively. "Francis is a fuckin' pansy-ass fairy name."

"Talking mule," Dean offers in return, and he sees the guy's own face crease in bewilderment. "Francis the talking mule," he clarifies. "Like Mr Ed. Only he came first." He pauses, clears his throat thickly. "My dad liked Frank Sinatra. He did it his way. My dad, I mean."

"Frank too," the dude says, nodding. "That's a great song," he adds reverently, holds out his hands for emphasis. "What is a man? What has he got?"

"If not himself, then he has not…" Dean finishes.

"I'm starting to like you." Big smile, stained, chipped teeth. "Buddy, when you call me you can call me Al."

 _Too fuckin' right, you big dumb piece of shit_ , Dean thinks. _Everyone likes me in the end. Even Uriel liked me in the end. Fuck, even Alastair liked me in the end_. He shivers, forces his face into a tired grin. "That's a relief. Since I face the final curtain and all."

The man cackles. "That you do. But you never know. She seems to like you better than the others. Says you're the one. Maybe that means you ain't a lost cause." He motions towards the sub and coffee cup. "You eating that?"

Dean looks down at the sandwich and his gut is shifting from side to side, part hunger, part nausea, part fear, part goddamned adrenaline. "Can't pick it up, Al," he whispers. "She cut me up too bad. Can't move my arm."

Grimace, followed by an eye roll, and the guy picks up his flashlight, launches forward onto his hands and knees, crawls over and flops down beside Dean. He makes himself comfortable, lifts the cup up to Dean's lips.

Dean sucks long and deep on the straw, gulps it down, just warm enough not to have him gagging. He leans his head back stiffly, till it rests against the wall, sighs out his relief. "I was pretty dry. Thanks."

"Nothin' like that first cup of Joe," the guy agrees, as he starts breaking off bits of the sub and feeding Dean small bites.

"Where am I?" Dean prods between chewing, and he huffs as the guy's expression goes doubtful. "It isn't like it'll make a difference if you tell me, Al, now is it?"

The man nods slowly. "I guess. You're in the elevator."

Dean frowns. "You said that before. I don't get it."

"Elevator," the guy says easily. "She don't like the stink of you guys in the room, and when she closes the doors it's soundproof in here. I rigged it so it's stuck on our floor. Well…" He looks back and up. "Sort of. Slipped down a few feet, but it'll do."

"But won't someone report it?" Dean says stupidly, and the man laughs.

"No one else here. Building's condemned. Hear that noise?"

"The cussin' weather…" Dean murmurs dreamily. "Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening… Used to say that to my baby brother."

The man quirks his lips. "Oh yeah? That the Sammy she's been bitchin' on about? She sure as Hell has it in for him."

Not much point in denying that, so Dean nods.

"Well it ain't the weather, buddy." The man shakes his head ruefully. "It's the wreckers. Demolition squad. They're knocking down this whole area."

After considering that for a minute, Dean pulls a face. "Are we staying for that?"

The man pushes up, stretches, and groans. "Well, _we_ ain't," he muses, and then he huffs out. "Don't know about you though, buddy. You'd best behave. She likes you, but…" His voice trails off meaningfully.

"She's a demon," Dean mutters, and he wonders if the fucktard really knows what he's gotten mixed up with as the man turns around and pries the doors apart.

Al turns back, considers him. "I'll leave them wedged open again," he says after a second. "I'll leave you the flashlight too. Shout if you need anything."

"Yeah," Dean breathes. "Fuckin' room service."

The man barks out an amused laugh and then heaves himself up and disappears.

Dean sits a minute, wearily ponders the sheer madness of people conspiring with demons, concludes that it must be what happens when the world ends.

And then he flips open the cellphone he lifted from the guy's pocket.

  
"A kid," Hudak says, and she's aghast, shaking her head. "How can a kid be responsible for this?"

Coop pauses from reading the file, throws her a sideways look, says, "You've seen Carrie. Teenage girls are the worst, Katie." He sniggers. "Makes me wonder what you were like."

"But a kid," Hudak says again. "Those bodies, the hearts… the faces. God."

"Kids raised the hard way can be moral voids," the big man says after a beat. "Most serial killers come from dysfunctional backgrounds… she could have been abused, there could be drugs, alcohol in there somewhere." He flicks through the pages. "He says Child Services never knew where she came from… it's a recipe for juvenile delinquency at the very least. She spent six months in care, doesn't seem like she mixed with anyone, so, isolation. It's textbook… lack of attention, loneliness, their minds become the object of their company, and bam – fantasy world. The two most frequently reported behaviors in serial killers are isolation and daydreaming, Katie." He picks out the FBI picture, studies it. "Seems like she's fantasizing about this Winchester character, from what her father says. And she's chasing that fantasy with the poor bastards she's killing."

Hudak shakes her head. "And no signs of abuse from the father," she murmurs. "He really was trying to help her. To the extent of covering up for her. Jesus."

Coop hums. "Well. Once we get the adoption records from DHS, at least we'll have a picture to go on. And we have the hooker's description of the accomplice."

 _Christ_ , Hudak thinks. _Dean doesn't have time for us to petition for the adoption records_. As the car eats up the miles, a road sign streaks up towards them, and she makes a decision. "Rest stop ahead. I need to take a leak, stretch my legs."

Shuffling the papers back inside the folder, her companion grunts. "Okey doke. Could do with a coffee myself."

  
"Signal… thank fuckin' God," Dean whispers as he squints down at the phone.

He taps out the digits with a careful, feeble thumb, and hits send. And he finds the phone is as heavy as a lead brick, he can't raise it to his ears, just can't push through the pain. He has to maneuver his hand across his body and up towards his right ear, sink his head down onto his chest to get his mouth as close to the receiver as he can, and when he hears the voice, he feels relief like he hasn't felt since Pontiac, when his brother wrapped him in his arms and held him so tight he could barely breathe.

"Sam," he husks out. "S'me. You need to – Sammy?"

There's nothing but silence, dead airspace. No, _dammit_ , and Dean hears himself sob out in despair and frustration. He grits his teeth, taps it out again, waits for the connection. "Sam. Listen to me. You have to trace this call… Sam? You getting this?"

Door slamming, footsteps, and Dean's heart races as he flops his hand back down at his side, pushes the phone under his thigh. When he looks up, she's there, staring in through the gap, his nemesis, the demon bitch who sicced her dogs on him and dragged him, kicking and screaming, to Hell.

Their eyes lock for a long moment, and Dean doesn't realize he's holding his breath until she turns and disappears. And then gives himself over to the fear, the misery, and the hopelessness, because he's damned.

  
Sam's phone beeps and he fumbles it out of his pocket, but it's just the hiss-crackle of a bad connection, and he snaps it closed.

Again, and it's the same white noise, but maybe there's a tinny, far-off voice cutting in and out, distorted. "Kathleen?" he guesses. "Is that you? I can't hear you." And then it's gone again, and Sam _tsks_ out frustration. "Number withheld," he tells Bobby as he glances at the screen. He stuffs the phone back into his pocket, disconsolate. "Must have been Kathleen."

Bobby pushes the laptop away. "Fuckin' spell couldn't just be eye of newt and toe of frog, could it?" he grouses. He rubs wearily at his brow, throws Sam a calculating look. "Is there any possibility Ruby could be jerkin' our chain on this?"

Sam feels his tension ramp up a notch. "No. I trust her. She's on the level, Bobby."

Bobby pulls a face, mumbles some indiscernible expression of irritation, glances over again. "How long is it now?"

"Five minutes since you last asked me," Sam says quietly. He sighs then. "She said it'd take a while. They can't speak to the guy without his lawyer present, and he has to drive down from International Falls."

The old man taps his knuckles on the table top, then twists and leans back to snag his jacket, rooting in the pocket and waving a deck of cards. "Ante up, boy." He empties a shower of loose change out onto the table, starts shuffling. "Seven card stud, highest hand wins. Bring-in's a quarter."

Sam lowers himself down into the chair opposite, adds his own handful of coins to the stake and Bobby deftly divvies up the cash before he deals. Sam squints down at his cards, pushes a quarter into the center of the table.

"Raise you," Bobby responds. "And you've never even been to International Falls?"

"No." Sam pinches the bridge of his nose, clamps his eyes closed for a few seconds. "Bobby, we've been over this."

"Well, we're doing it again," the old man parries smartly. "Was Dean ever there? When you were at Stanford, maybe?"

"I don't think so," Sam says. "I'm sure he's told me about pretty much every hunt he and dad went on when I was gone, and all of his solo hunts were further south. Hibbing's as far north as we've been in Minnesota."

Bobby snorts. "Hibbing. Jesus. I'd like to wipe that place from my memory."

"Yeah." The recall of the woods, the long search, his brother's recovery, is visceral, but even so, Sam remembers something Dean said and he tacks it on the end. "Though Dean said something once… said the woods, Bender, were like a practice run for Hell."

The old man grimaces, puts his cards down. "My mind isn't on this," he grates harshly. "Jesus. We don't even know if the John Doe is even the first one. It could go back further, longer, this connection with Dean. Whatever it is."

"Maybe it isn't Dean," Sam ventures. "It could be as simple as it looks – some lunatic with an obsession for guys who look like Dean." He shrugs. "Dean looks like Dean."

Bobby huffs out. "You think he'll remember what Castiel told him in his dream? About the hexbag?"

Sam is amazed it has taken Bobby this long to get round to it. "I don't know," he says, tentative. "Ever since he came back he doesn't seem to remember what he dreams. Wakes up the next day with no memory of them."

"Or none that he'll admit to." Bobby eyes Sam hard. "Let's hope he remembers this one."

Sam doesn't really know how to phrase it because he knows there isn't any way to say it without it sounding trite, knows there aren't any words of apology that will ever be significant enough to do it justice. "I'm sorry about the hexbag," he says softly. "It was stupid of me. Careless."

The old man's answer is as withering as Sam expected. "That has to be the understatement of the fuckin' century, boy." He shakes his head. "What the hell were you thinking?"

Sam races it out. "It's more than just visions, Bobby, has been for a long time. I can move things with my mind, like those other psychic kids. And – other things. Ruby was showing me how to harness it, how to control it, I thought I might be able to use it, use it for—"

"Your revenge quest," Bobby cuts in, a repeat of what he said before. "Your brother told me, Sam. About the other things too. Not just moving things with your mind. Exorcising demons with it."

Sam looks down at his boots, keeps himself locked down tight, calm, even though he feels like a lit fuse and for a second he thinks of the flask, _fresh from the vein_ , feels a sudden lurch of _need-want-crave_ , feels his mouth go sandpaper dry with his thirst. "Castiel told Dean to stop me," he mutters, licking his lips. "Uriel said it too. And Dean, he asked me to stop. But I – didn't. And it was easier to do it if no one knew. Cas would have sensed her and told Dean about it."

He leaves it there, can feel the weight of Bobby's steady gaze as he sits there waiting for the explosion, but it doesn't come.

Instead, "For what it's worth, Dean said he thought you were trying to do good with it," the old man says. "He thought you might have kept on doing it because you figured it was the only way to take out Lilith."

"That is the reason, or it was… I just." He holds up thumb and forefinger, millimeters apart, leans into them, closes his eyes. "It's – more than that."

Bobby doesn't reply and Sam flicks his eyes up, sees the old man's eyes are narrowed, suspicious maybe. He takes a deep breath. "All this time I've been telling myself I was doing it for good, doing it for Dean," he says. "And I am. The thought of losing him to this again is just – _fuck_. Too much." He can see his knuckles flare white as he clenches his fists, and digs his fingernails into his palms, and his jaw is set so tense he can barely continue. "And I can maybe stop that if I'm strong enough. But…" He looks up at the old man again. "I've been lying to myself too, Bobby, because it's not just about Dean anymore. It's about me. It's about feeling like I'm in control. Unstoppable. Powerful. I like it. I think Dean knows. And maybe now I'll never get the chance to tell him he was right."

Bobby meets his gaze. "Dean's afraid of it," he says. "Afraid of what it's doing to you, afraid of what it might mean for you—"

"When he should have been afraid of what it might mean for him," Sam chokes out bitterly. "God, Bobby, it's part of this whole mess… me thinking I knew better, thinking I _was_ better, smarter, stronger. Thinking I had to take charge of this because he isn't up to the job, and—"

 _Jesus, phone again_ , and Sam startles, almost drops it as he fishes it out of his pocket. "Number withheld again," he mutters. "Hello?" His heart leaps as the voice comes through crystal clear. "Kathleen? Oh thank God, you were breaking up real bad before."

She's businesslike, handing out orders like she's the boss of Sam, but it doesn't rile him. He reaches for his pen, starts taking it all down as she winds it up. "Got it. Yeah, I can hack in, I've done it before. Okay."

He stays calm as he flips open his laptop, glances up at Bobby. "She said it's definitely Dean the perp is fixing on. The guy in Stillwater identified the FBI picture, said his kid was totally obsessed with it, cut it out of the newspaper after that shit went down with Hendricksen in Monument, kept saying she knew Dean."

"So we got a name?" Bobby snaps. "Someone you recognize?"

"Yes and no." Sam chews his lip and he types. "Trenton. I don't know the name, and apparently the only time this guy drove over the county line in the last three years it was in the convoy taking him to Stillwater…"

"So how is it that his daughter—"

"He adopted her," Sam replies. "Just over three years ago, out of a children's home in St Paul."

Bobby's face is a picture. "Jesus. So she must be a young kid…" He shakes his head, scrubs at his beard. "Lilith does like to wear kids," he offers. "And it was around the time of that Monument fubar her name first came up."

Sam rubs at his own brow because it still doesn't add up. "Honestly Bobby, I don't know. That is when Ruby first mentioned Lilith, but the timescale is off. Why would she have killed these other guys when she already had Dean down in the Pit, right where she wanted him?" He drums his fingers on the table for a few seconds, turns his attention back to the screen. "Children's Home Society and… that's the one." He knits his brow, forces himself past the worry, the nagging voice of doom in his head.

"Freud once said that a child would destroy the world if it had the power," Bobby says flatly.

Sam makes an indeterminate noise of agreement, flies his fingers over the keyboard. "Trenton, Douglas… Says the kid was a vagrant, approximate age twelve or thirteen, didn't talk, no identification."

"Do they have a picture?" Bobby prods.

"I'm working on it," Sam mutters. "Department of Human Services holds the records, I just need to find a back door into their content management system."

He flies through screens, backtracks, digs deeper, takes a wrong turn and curses as he backtracks, and suddenly it flashes up, and his fingers freeze. He stares at the screen for what seems like years but really it's only seconds as it all cascades through his head, a crashing waterfall of memories, flotsam on furious whitecapped surf, like he rewound himself back to then and now he's fast-forwarding through it all, swept along like they were in the river in the woods, and he fists and unfists his hand, brings it up to his chest because it's like his lungs are caught in a vise and he can't breathe. He's vaguely conscious of Bobby sitting opposite, snapping his fingers, barely hears the scrape of the chair as the old man pushes up, walks around to look over his shoulder, shakes him even.

"Sam," Bobby is saying sharply. "What? What is it?"

She looks different, washed up, hair braided, smiling wide for the camera, and Sam thinks distantly that Bobby never really got a close look at her, never stared into her flinty, empty eyes.

His tongue is swelled and thick in his mouth as he chokes it out. "It's Missy Bender."


	17. The Second Gift

Hudak has to sit down and rest her head in her hands for a minute after she looks at the screen. When she focuses on the image again, her mouth drops open as Bobby pours a couple of fingers of whiskey into the glass from the bathroom.

She knocks it back in one, wipes her lips with the back of her hand. "They never found her body after the Bender place burned," she murmurs faintly. "Jesus. And no one seemed to know she even existed… I never said anything. I didn't want to make things worse than they already were, especially after that Fed turned up."

Sam pauses in his pacing behind her, his anxiety suddenly finding an outlet in a burst of acid anger. "You should have told _us_ they never found her. We went back to Hibbing to help you out with your wendigo problem, Kathleen. Didn't it occur to you she could have popped up when we were in the woods? I think—"

"Cut it out, Sam," Bobby interjects sharply, and when Sam spins around to face the old man, Bobby's gaze flicks away like he's guilty before he goes on. "She told me they never found the body after the fire. I never told you or Dean." He shakes his head. "I just wanted to get your brother home. And it didn't seem likely a kid her age could survive out there after everything that went down."

And it's true, Sam realizes, albeit reluctantly, and this is wasting time when they have a solution. He turns his attention back to Kathleen, stabs a finger at the laptop. "Now we have this we can find her. Can you put out some kind of all-points-bulletin, whatever it's called, get the photograph circulating?"

Hudak rubs at her jaw. "Not using this," she says after a minute, and she raises a hand as Sam starts to protest. "We obtained it illegally. Coop's going through channels now, but…"

"But what?" Bobby pushes.

Hudak frowns, bites her lip as she studies the face staring back at them. "It's weird," she mutters. "Her eyes… serial killer eyes. They all have dead eyes. Like a shark. But there's something about her. She looks familiar. I mean, outside of her being Missy Bender."

Hudak's statement is slow and thoughtful, too slow and thoughtful for Sam. "Look, we really can't wait around for this," he snaps. "We have the picture, there's no reason why Bobby and I can't get out there and look… I can email it to my phone."

Just as Sam utters the word, his phone trills, and he curses under his breath as he pulls out the device again. "Jesus. Number withheld, like before. This is getting fucking old."

  
"S'mmy. S'me. Please."

Dean puts all of his desperation in there because he's running out of battery power, and running out of time. And when the call cuts out, he tamps down his despair, taps out the number again, diligently, laboriously.

  
Sam's just about to flip the phone closed again when he gets it, a creepy frisson of unease, the hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention feeling he gets before Castiel beams in.

He turns, almost expects to see the angel standing right up in his no-fly zone. But no one is there, and he furrows his brow, ponders on the oddness of it, wincing at the crackle in his ear and the breathy voice right there underneath it, unhappy, pleading, panicked. And he feels his knees give up the fight and buckle him onto the bed behind him, feels his guts twist, and suddenly he's drenched in a cold sweat, because it's _Dean_.

He croaks out his brother's name, sees Hudak and Bobby look up and around so sharply they'll be nursing whiplash injuries for sure.

"Dean… Jesus. Dean, where are you? Can you tell me?"

 _S'm… s'bout time_.

It's weak, labored, at once the most beautiful sound Sam ever heard, and the worst. He swallows down his panic, the words of reassurance that want to tumble out of him. "Dean," he says tersely. "Do you know where you are? Can you get to the hexbag?" He can see Bobby motioning frantically for the phone number, shakes his head, mouths _withheld_ at him.

 _Elevator… come soon, S'm… wreckers_ …

"Dean," Sam hollers. "You need to get the hexbag and throw it as far as you can. Dean… Dean? Dean? Fuck."

The line is dead, and now Hudak is up and in Sam's face, voice high and urgent.

"What did he say? Sam? Does he know where he is?"

Sam shakes his head, palms his eyes. "Just something about an elevator. And wreckers. He sounded out of it, like he was hurting."

"Wreckers?" Hudak is knitting her eyebrows, eyes darting furiously from his face to the phone "Elevator… so not a house, not anything low-level."

"I though it was you," Sam gasps. "Before, I think he tried to call before, just like you did. I thought it was you because the number was withheld."

Hudak turns away briefly, shields her cheeks with her palms, paces furiously, and, "Wait," she says. "Wait a minute." And then she's throwing herself down in front of Bobby's laptop, tapping furiously. "We use line blocks on our cells," she races out. "Cops, I mean… unofficially, but we use them." She reaches out, twists Sam's computer around to face her. "I know her," she says, as she squints at the details. "I'm sure I do… Melissa. Christ, it's her. It's _her_."

Sam shoots to his feet, crosses to look over Hudak's shoulder, can barely rasp out the words. "Who is it? Where will she have him?"

"Mel, it's Mel." Hudak glances up. "Look at her. Her eyes… shark eyes. It's the _hooker_ , Sam. It's the hooker. Mel, Melissa, _Missy_. She's been playing us all along."

Sam feels the push of a chair at the back of his knees, sinks down gratefully into it, nods up at Bobby. "She recognized me," he whispers raggedly. "Something about the way she looked at me. I felt like I knew her, but I just couldn't put my finger on it… and she asked me about my partner."

"She asked me too, after you left," Hudak replies.

"I shouted the name of the motel back at you when I was walking to the car," he chokes out. "I told her exactly where he was."

"Can we find her?" Bobby grates out from behind them. "Do you have an address for her?"

"No, but what Dean said, about wreckers. I dropped her home one morning, other side of town. It's all condemned… warehouses, office blocks. It's slated for demolition. I think she might be squatting there." Hudak stops what she's doing, barks out a hollow laugh, turns and looks right at Sam. "My cellphone was stolen," she says, calm now. "Right after Coop and I first scoped the alleyway and questioned the hookers about Kevin Garner. She said she didn't take it and I believed her. I don't know why. She seemed so young, I guess I just didn't want to. Jesus. But now this." She looks back at the screen as the page reloads. "I think she took it, and I think Dean's gotten hold of it somehow, and if he has then—"

"You can get a bead on it," Bobby cuts in, and Sam can see his hands gripping her shoulders now, tight, white-knuckled.

"Yep… the beauty of web-based tracking," she murmurs, as the page loads fully. "Yahtzee," she snaps out, and stabs a finger at the map on the screen. "It's right where I dropped her. He's within a hundred yards of here. And we know it must be a building with an elevator."

Sam's already out the door.

  
She divebombs Dean from above just as his hand slips away from his face, a screaming whirlwind of rage, arms and legs windmilling and hitting him all at once like she's suspended in mid air.

Dean spits blood and cackles feebly at the Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon-ness of it all, while she lays into him and howls, barely intelligible. Her knife is flashing bright in the light, opening him up savagely, and he creeps his arm across his midriff, feels blood pumping again, clutches himself protectively, while his leg lights up into sparking fire as if she's spot-welding the broken bone back together. Her feet trample him down, the force of her attack pushing his body further away from his corner until he's hanging from his wrist, and he gets a sudden mental image of the plastic garroting through the bones and tendons there until he flops down all of the way, leaving his hand still tethered while its stump sprays the walls, and God help him if the idea of bleeding out doesn't seem like the best thing in the world right now.

He feels her hands on him, furiously rummaging, feels his fingers holding onto nothing now, blinks dazedly up at her as she stares down at the phone in her hand, and he can see her shaking with anger. She hurls it at him and it slams into the side of his skull so he sees stars, and then she's exploding again, hitting out at the air, screeching, her hair flying everywhere, until she stops, and stares ahead of her for a few minutes of silence.

And then she turns and stares right at Dean. "Did Al give you that phone?" she asks softly, strangely calm now. "He shouldn't have done that."

"No," Dean whispers faintly. "Took it… from him… didn't know…"

His vision is graying out, and he can just barely see her hitch herself up, disappear through the wedged-open doors. And he lies in his own blood, feels it bubble on his lips as he pants out breaths, _dying breaths_ , and he wonders if that's what they mean by death rattle, because he can feel his breathing slowing down, feel his blood cooling on the floor underneath him, feel the pain fading, feel peace descending. He hugs it to him, the quiet and tranquility ahead of the _cussin' weather_ , and the rack, and the depravity. For a second, he wonders how long it'll take Castiel to find him this time, wonders if his friend even meant what he said.

"Don't leave me there," he murmurs into the silence. "Cas. Don't."

  
Missy has fond memories of Big Al. She remembers how he piled in, fists flying, when her quick thirty-five buck trick turned into a gangbang against the north wall of the tower block they call home, remembers how he laid into those sons of bitches like the nameless whore he was defending meant something to him. When they were variously scattered like bowling pins, groaning and spitting teeth, he'd picked her up and carried her to the top of the tower, patched her up, fed her soup, came back the next day with a brand new copy of J-14 for her, like she was a real teenage girl, He'd told her she could stay when she got better, and helped her truck her stuff over from her squat.

She got used to his presence, his bustling, his fussing, his damned cat, his disapproval at her line of work and her hobby. He didn't interfere, helped her clear up, helped her snare all those pretty boys she thought were _the one_ , and helped her tote buckets of water to the elevator to swill out the mess when it turned out they weren't. He drove her over to the Econolodge while her heart sang because she'd finally found him, told her to stay in the truck all safe and sound when they came across the big black car, deserted in the road, lights blazing. And when she knelt down next to him as he lay there all broken and bloody and _so darn purty_ , and reverently held his amulet in her fingers, Al smiled along with her because she'd found her heart's desire, and all he ever wanted was for his Miss Melissa to be happy.

She knows Al's lightbulbs aren't screwed in all the way, so sometimes they flicker and sometimes they don't come on at all. When that happens, his puzzled dumb hick expression and shambling bulk remind her of Lee before Lee got all _crazyhaha_ and thought to take Gabriel away from her when he was _hers_.

Al is looking up at her right now from the couch with that smiley, dopey look on his face as he crunches Doritos, and his cat sits on his lap and purrs up at her.

 _No one's takin' my brother away from me again_ , she thinks.

"Hey, Al," she says, all sing-song and friendly. "Let's go up top and look at the stars."

  
It screams post-Apocalyptic wasteland, deserted, abandoned shells with broken windows and peeling _condemned_ posters, burnt-out cars, trash, and abandoned shopping carts, the odd half-starved cat skulking in the shadows.

Hudak hands Sam a flashlight, leans close. "We'd cover more ground if we split up, but a lot of these buildings aren't safe. I think we should stick together just in case one of us falls through the floor."

Sam points. "He said elevator – maybe we should do the tallest buildings first?"

She nods, and they walk briskly, Bobby jogging up behind with his own Maglite and a blanket.

"In case we find him," he says at Sam's look. "Police reports said they were all…" he stops, starts again. "They were, uh…"

"Stripped," Sam says, and his voice trips over his tongue on its way out of his mouth, comes out strangled and raw. "The bodies were all stripped."

The old man stares back at him for a second. "Try calling the elevators," he says. "Some of the lights are on, so those buildings must still have power. If she's keeping him in an elevator, it won't be a working one. We might be able to deprioritize a couple of these wrecks if all the elevators show up empty and clean."

They trudge through debris, weave around cranes and bulldozers, and Sam thinks of his brother walking up close behind him, sniggering and maybe saying in that low scratchy voice that they should have a backhoe race now they're here.

"Do you think Castiel would come if we called him?" Hudak says suddenly. "I bet he could search these buildings a lot faster than us."

And fuck it, Sam never even thought of calling for his brother's angel. He opens his mouth to holler out his name into the night, wonders at the back of his mind if it will go ignored because he isn't the one who matters to Castiel, and movement distracts him. He stumbles as he narrowly avoids stepping on a fat, greasy looking rat as it skitters out underfoot and then, faint on the wind he can hear something.

He looks up, and, "Jesus!" he cries out before he can help himself, because there on the crest of the block to their left he can see a figure, up on the ramparts, arms flung out wide for balance so he looks like Philippe Petit walking his wire.

Sam starts to run, starts to shout, because even at this distance he can see the figure is tall, _Dean tall_. He can hear Hudak echo his hoarse cry as the man spins, starts waving his arms, and overbalances. He hangs in the air for an instant, as if he's floating weightless, before he plummets. In the next second they hear the slam-smack of the impact, and it's like a bomb going off.

Sam doesn't stop running even though he knows what to expect, he's seen pictures of jumpers, _exploding water balloon filled with blood_. And suddenly there the guy is, beside a battered looking truck, reasonably intact but spread out and spongey, no structure or volume to him now because he's smashed to smithereens inside his bag of skin. He's already leaking blood from every orifice, and it looks black in the dark, like he was dropped into a lake of oil. Sam knows that if he picked him up and shook him he'd hear all those loose broken pieces crunching around inside like he was shaking a cereal box.

Hudak and Bobby skid to a halt behind Sam, and he hears one of them, maybe both of them, start retching. And then Bobby is next to him, shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard, face glistening with sweat and eyes staring wildly.

"It's not him," the old man mutters. "Christ. It's not him. This can't be a coincidence. Can it?"

"It isn't," Hudak chokes out from behind her hand as she ranges up behind them. "It's Jabba the Hutt… it's the guy she described to me. I'm sure of it."

Sam looks from the sack of meat lying on the ground at his feet up, up to the top. "Do you think she pushed him?" he says quietly. "He sounded like he was shouting at someone. And he was waving."

Bobby is crossing over to the elevator bank, pressing buttons, screwing his nose up at the stench of urine. "Two, neither works," he grates out. "How many floors?"

Hudak steps back, counts up. "Fifteen," she says. "We're probably looking at two flights of stairs for every floor. Okay. We do this one first." She glances down at the body, lazily oozing where it landed, then looks at over at Sam. "There's no way she could have thrown this guy off there, she's too small. She must have forced him up there somehow. Which means she might be armed, so stay frosty." She shines her flashlight into the gloom. "Stairwell's over there."

  
Sam feels numb as they climb stairs, two flights between each floor just like Hudak said, and peer out cautiously into each elevator lobby before he and Bobby worm their fingers in between each set of doors and force them apart, grunting out exertion and despair as each comes up empty.

Seventh floor, same drill, and the smell that emanates as he pries the elevator open has Sam reeling and gagging. It's the smell of death, and he lurches away a few feet, leans over. He can hear Hudak spluttering, and then Bobby heaves him back upright with a hand under his arm, grips his chin between thumb and palm.

"Sam. Listen to me. It's a dog." Bobby speaks clear and firm. "It's a dog. You got that? Must've crawled in there to sleep and gotten trapped when they shut off the power."

"It's a dog?" Sam echoes, barely a croak.

The old man nods vigorously. "It's a dog. Come on… we're halfway there. In fifteen minutes, you'll have your brother back, boy."

Sam grins weakly. "You promise?" he breathes, but Bobby doesn't answer.

Hudak's loud whisper echoes up from behind him in the stairwell as they climb up to eight. "The elevators," she says. "They must be soundproof. I'm thinking this is where she killed them… that old truck out front looks abandoned but maybe it's his… Jabba's. They would have needed transport for the bodies. There should be – forensic evidence. If I'm right."

"And she'd have had plenty of cover too, with the racket from the demolition squad," Bobby offers. "You think any of the wrecking crew might have—"

Sam sees it, the flash of movement two flights up, and the stairwell door slams. His long legs take him up the rest of the way three steps at a time, and he ignores Hudak's warning cry as he crashes out through the door, looks wildly around him. He sees a shadow down at floor level for a brief second before it disappears as he sprints up to the elevator doors, and then he thanks Christ his own forward motion takes him beyond them as he sees the flash of the discharge, low down, and hears the shot ping harmlessly past him. He can see Hudak poking her head around the doorjamb, gestures at her, and she trots up, Bobby in her wake.

Sam waves them down until they're squatting opposite him. "She got in the elevator," he whispers. "She was down real low, looked like she had to slide in there. I think it must be stuck between floors."

"Did you manage to get a look inside there?" Bobby hisses.

Sam shakes his head, fists and unfists his hand. "She was firing by then."

"So we don't know if he's in there with her?" Bobby says and bites his lip. "Maybe I should search the offices just in case she moved him, she might have—"

He glances at Hudak as she nudges him. "Hang on…" She fishes out her phone, taps in numbers, and down at feet level they hear it, and Sam blinks at her.

"The X-Files theme?"

"I'm a fan," she says defensively. "So what?" She feeds her cell back into her pocket. "Assuming he still has the phone, he must be in there with her," she says carefully. "And she has a gun. And it looks like she just forced that guy to jump off this building."

Bobby pulls off his cap, wipes his brow. "So she's insane, armed, and desperate. Just what you need in a hormonal teenager."

The voice floats up, lilting, almost playful. "I can hear everything you're saying up there, Mister."

"Fuckin' mouthy, too," Bobby snaps.

Sam twists around, shines his flashlight in, catches a glimpse of a white face looking up at him, dead doll eyes. He can't see much more before she lets a shot off. He ducks back and it zips past his nose, so close he can feel its heat before it buries itself harmlessly in the wall. "Is my brother alive?" he barks down into the gloom, and after a few seconds her voice drifts up again.

"Hey Sammy. That is you up there, ain't it? Lordy, Gabe's been hollerin' for you and that other guy, wonderin' why you don't come."

Sam swallows. "Is he alive?"

"Well, I don't know. Let's see here…"

She's silent for another few seconds, then, "Sorry Sammy, but it ain't lookin' too good… I just kicked him real hard, and not a whisper. Lot of blood down here too. Fact he looks real purty, all covered in his own blood. I might just want to think about takin' me a souvenir while I'm here, seein' as it might be the—"

"Fuck," Sam hears himself cry out. "No!" And in the next second something is flashing past his eyes, smashing against the wall, and he can hear Hudak yelling at him to _move, now_. He flings himself flat, covers his head as shots sound and glass breaks, and then it's quiet and he dares to look over at the wall where the gun fell, because he can _make the gun float to you there, psychic boy_. When he lifts his eyes to meet Bobby's, the old man's gaze is stunned.

Sam rights himself slowly, shuffles back up against the wall again, shoots another glance over to his right.

"Did you do that?" Hudak says, and her eyes are huge.

There's a smudge of dirt on her cheek where she hit the floor, and Sam motions at his own face. "You got some dirt there," he says stupidly, and he nods. "And yes, I think I did do that."

Bobby cranes his neck around into the elevator, doesn't risk going any further, looks at Sam again. "You said you can move things," he says slowly, like the reality is only just dawning on him. "Jesus. Can you move the elevator up? So it's level with this floor?"

Sam leans his head back against the wall, closes his eyes, breathes long and slow, cleansing breaths. "I think I can manage that," he murmurs. He reaches into his pocket for his flask, unscrews the cap deliberately, drinks deep before replacing the lid and putting the small container away. He glances across at Bobby. "Dutch courage," he lies, and then he leans his head back again, waits for the rush, the tingle, the cresting pleasure, all underpinned by something infinitely darker and more powerful. He supposes idly that Castiel might call it wrath.

He pushes up then, moves to stand in front of the doors and he barely has to reach out his hand before they hear the grind of gears and the squeal of long-disused cables, and the doors slide open simultaneously.

 _Come out, come out wherever you are_ , Sam thinks, and after a few seconds she steps out of the gloom, stiff, like a mechanical doll, her movements jerky as he push-pulls her. She's making a strangled whining sound, can't move her jaws to speak because Sam wired them shut with his own willpower.

"I've come to get my brother," he says distantly. "Why don't you wait… over there?"

He glances over at the wall, and almost before his eyes shift there, she's slamming into it, sliding down to sit in a slumped heap, immobilized her eyes wide, confused, terrified. "Sit," Sam orders coldly. "Stay." He glances over at Hudak. "She won't move from there until I let her go."

Bobby is pushing past him, making far-off sounds of panic and worry, saying his brother's name, sobbing it out, and Hudak is moving to crouch down beside the girl, and reading her the Miranda. And Sam comes back down to earth, spins, and then he's in there, down on his knees.

He barely recognizes his brother, because Dean is a pitiful heap of butchered flesh, his tee shredded, and blood soaking into his jeans. Bobby is sawing furiously away at his wrist, tied to the elevator grab bar, and Sam can hear Hudak right behind him telling him to _watch the leg, it's splinted_. And Christ, even the smell is the same as before, after New Harmony, when the heat turned the car into a furnace on wheels and the miasma of rotting meat assaulted his nostrils as he and Bobby drove Dean home to bury him.

Hudak has her fingers against Dean's neck, turns his head around and lays her cheek over Dean's parted, bloody lips, but she's speaking up at Sam. "Can you lift him? It's too small to work in here, and I don't think we should drag him."

Sam's knees slip and slide in puddles of blood, _same as before_ , and he stares down at his brother's half-lidded eyes _same as before_ as he threads his arms under Dean's shoulders and knees, and pushes up. Dean's head lolls lifelessly against his chest _same as before_ as he staggers outside into the lobby and on over to a window, as far away from the girl as possible, though he can feel her eyes following him, boring into his back as he lays his cargo down.

Bobby and Hudak are close behind, flashlights blazing, and Sam finds he can't move as Bobby busies himself up at his Dean's head, starts saying his name again, slapping his cheek, listening for breath sounds. "I'm not getting anything," he says tightly. "Dean. Come on." The old man laces his fingers together on Dean's chest, starts pumping with the heels of his hands. "He's still warm," he mutters, but his eyes are flicking up to Hudak, across to Sam and back to Hudak again, and his jaw is set tight.

Hudak is rooting out her phone and it's all happening in slow motion as Sam looks down at his brother's ragdoll body, empty now, white and bloodless, sightless eyes, _same as before_ , his shoulder flayed raw. He runs his fingertip over the trail of cigarette burns that starts at Dean's belly and meanders up to his chest, where she signed her name in his hide, and he wonders if he'll be able to hear Dean screaming in Hell the next time he dreams. And a tiny crack is opening inside Sam, getting bigger, wider, dust spilling down into it, a sinkhole that gets deeper, turns into a chasm, a grand canyon that swallows up trees, houses, animals, people that tumble into the void, screaming as they fall, because this abyss goes straight down to the Pit and something is billowing up out of it, something noxious, toxic, poisonous gas that waits for the spark that will set it off.

He stands, walks a few steps towards the girl and she stares up at him, doesn't look away. He cocks his head, can hear Hudak coming up behind him, can feel her hand press lightly against the small of his back.

"Sam," she says softly. "We need to get out of here. I need to call this in, think up some cover story. She's in custody now, we have – _evidence_. She's going to the pen and she'll never get out."

Sam doesn't acknowledge her. "You stubbed out your cigarettes on my brother," he tells the girl, and he doesn't even recognize his own voice, it's guttural, ice cold.

She smiles up at him. "Gabe always looked purty when he was hurtin'," she sneers. "And I didn't have an ashtray."

Hudak freezes beside Sam, and he hears her gasp, feels her hand fist a handful of his jacket. He slants his eyes down at her.

"Fuck due process," she breathes.

It's easy, easier than she deserves, as Sam slides her across the floor and back into the elevator without moving a muscle. She reaches out to grab at the doors, starts babbling frantically, starts pleading for mercy, and Sam slams the doors shut, snaps the wires. There is a faint scream as the elevator freefalls to the bottom, and the crash resounds back up the shaft, buffets the doors with its force.

Sam stares ahead for a second before turning around, and Bobby is sitting back on his heels, gazing back at him, his eyes bleak, tears streaking his cheeks. "Sam," he says. "I'm sorry, boy. I'm so sorry."

Sam rolls his shoulders, breathes out deep, counts down from ten. He walks over to his brother's body, rolls him onto his side, forces his fingers down into the bloodsoaked fabric of his jeans. In the same instant he flings the hexbag as hard as he can, the angel is there, throwing himself down on to his knees beside them, expression appalled.

"Fix him," Sam says, and he says it soft, polite, but he makes it damn clear that it's an order. "I don't care about your prime directive. Fix him."

Castiel puts a hand out, and Sam can see that it's shaking as he lays it gently on the raw flesh where the mark was. "How long?" he says softly. "If his soul has descended… you must understand that if he is down there it isn't as simple as—"

"Not long," Sam grinds out. "He's still warm."

"Wait a minute, Sam," Bobby cuts in. "If his soul is in the Pit, couldn't he come back empty? What if—"

"I'll take what I get," Sam snaps, and he stares Castiel in the eyes. "Fix him. Please." His voice breaks then. "You fought for him when I couldn't, in places where I couldn't go. I know you love him, it's right there in your eyes. Don't leave him there while you wait for your orders. Please. Fix him. And make his skin like new."

After a long moment Castiel nods slowly. "I will. I will, Sam." He glances over at Bobby and Hudak. "Close your eyes, all of you," he says, firmly, and he places his hand over the mark again, flicks his gaze back up to Sam's face. His eyes are already blazing, but then they soften almost imperceptibly and he tilts his head slightly. "Put your hand on Dean's heart, Sam," he says suddenly. "But don't look at me, no matter how much you want to."

Sam reaches out, lays his hand on skin slick with blood, blinks his eyes hard closed.

And it's like electricity coursing up his arm, and it's soundless but not, because there is noise but it's inside Sam's head, roaring winds, a heated blast of air, and the light sears red and gold through his closed eyelids so he has to press his face into his shoulder. And then there is bliss, joy, ecstasy, comfort, rapture and awe, the grace of God, and underneath it all is something more personal, and maybe it's Castiel, because it's loyalty, it's devotion, it's _love_.

It's so beautiful, so pure, that Sam thinks he might even be weeping with it, and he knows that it's the angel's second gift to him, because life is the first gift and love is the second. And in that instant, he remembers that understanding is the third, and his understanding is the knowledge that he's feeling this by default. The realization twists his heart, because some small part of him knows it may never touch him again. And then, abruptly, it ends, and he feels emptiness, loss, grief. He opens his eyes, looks down.

Dean is staring up at him, white-faced and bleary eyed, but there's no recognition there, only wariness, suspicion.

"Dean," Sam chokes out.

And his brother's eyes flare and he shrinks back against Castiel, starts tumbling out the words in rapid-fire, " _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio, infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica…_ "


	18. The Path that Brings You Lower

Sam shuffles closer, leans down, tries to reach out and cup his brother's ashen face, but Dean snarls at him and scrambles rapidly away past Castiel, dragging the splinted leg along behind him.

He ends up with his back against the wall, and shuffles sideways until he's pressed up into a corner, hugging the knee he's able to bend, his eyes incandescent with terror and rage, and still he drones out the exorcism rite, his voice wrecked and hoarse. _Trapped animals are the most vicious_ , occurs to Sam, _they strike and fight to the death because they have nothing to lose_. Even so, he crawls a few feet closer, holds out his hand again, only for Dean's voice to rise in pitch, high and desperate.

Sam feels his own uselessness and anger start to boil, shoots a look back at Castiel. "Cas, was he there?" he asks desperately. "Back in the Pit? Was I there with him, is that what this is?"

The angel doesn't reply at first, seems to be considering his response, and when he does speak his voice is dispassionate. "He wasn't there. This is – _fear_. His fear."

He's looking Sam in the eye but his gaze is back to its usual blank, and Sam suddenly remembers that Castiel said he would never betray Dean's trust, never reveal what he endured. It gives him a sick, tight feeling in his gut, the feeling he's being served by an angel of the Lord again, and that his brother just spent another year screaming on the rack. He wants to ask, even if he knows it isn't the time and isn't even sure if an angel can lie in the first place, but Castiel hasn't blinked yet and even if his eyes were blank when he spoke, now they're alight and piercing into Sam like Cas is reading his mind.

Hudak crabbing up behind him ends the moment, and she ducks reflexively as Dean's babbling speeds up. "Look, we need to move this along," she says urgently. "These demolition crews start work at dawn and there's a very messy body at the bottom of this building, not to mention…" She widens her eyes meaningfully, slants them over towards the elevator bank.

Sam scrubs at his hair. "How are we going to – I mean, what do I do? Knock him out? I don't want to." He's distracted for a second by Bobby's voice, quiet and careful.

"If he wasn't there, does that mean he's free and clear? Of the deal?"

The angel studies the old man gravely for a few seconds. "I don't know," he says finally, simply. "He was waiting. Souls don't immediately depart."

Hudak suddenly nudges Sam hard. "Say it along with him," she whispers. "It's the exorcism rite isn't it? Say it with him. When he flipped out at my place, he told me he couldn't say the rite if he was a demon. So if he hears you saying it, maybe he'll figure out that you aren't?"

Christ, it's so fucking obvious Sam kicks his own butt hard and repeatedly inside his head. He shuffles a few inches nearer to his brother, and Dean's eyes stare at him in blind horror, bruised and shadowed underneath, and he holds his hands up in self-defense.

"You aren't him," he mutters in a monotone, and then he picks it up again, "Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis, humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt—"

Sam picks it up too, joins in, "Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae," and it's like jump rope rhymes, and they're skipping in unison, Blue Bells, Cockle Shells, like the girls at school used to play. Sam says the words along with Dean, stares intently at him all the while, and he hears his brother start to slow down, start to falter, and then he stops, and the silence is deafening as they gaze at each other until Sam cocks his head. "Are you back?" he dares.

Dean doesn't say anything.

"We have to get out of here," Hudak hisses again beside Samm. "The sun will be coming up soon."

And Sam is at a loss, doesn't know what to do because getting any closer could bolt his brother to the next county. He looks helplessly over to Bobby, and the old man is crouched down low too, shuffling forwards, blanket in hand.

"Dean, it's cold, son," Bobby soothes. "Let's get this blanket around you, get you to the car. It's over. She'll never come back."

"It's over," Dean repeats mechanically. "She'll never come back." But he's still tense, still in fight or flight mode, rubbing at his belly and then his chest. He looks down at himself, frowns, and then his hand meanders up to his shoulder almost unconsciously. When he rests it there, on the newly restored handprint, his face relaxes. He clamps his eyelids tight shut for a minute, sighs out, and when he opens his eyes again, it's just weariness and relief.

It's all too obvious what brought his brother back down to earth, and Sam glances over at Castiel, sees that the angel is poised, tense and almost trembling with anticipation, coiled up like a cat about to pounce. Castiel looks sideways at him, and Sam can see the unspoken request in his eyes. He reaches out to Bobby, snags the blanket and hands it over. "He'll let you help him," he says dully.

Castiel stands wordlessly, walks over and squats down to drape the fabric around Dean. He puts his hand on Dean's cheek, and his voice is gentle. "It's over. You're safe." Dean nods, and Castiel helps him rise to his feet, puts an arm around him, propping him up as he stumbles. He starts leading Dean past them towards the stairwell, whispering reassurance to him.

"It's twenty-eight flights," Hudak pipes up. "Can't you just zap him there?" She shrugs as they all look at her. "Well," she finishes defensively. "It makes sense. He looks fit to drop."

Castiel replies patiently, in the kind of voice teachers reserve for the slow child. "I can't. It will take some time for me to recover my—"

"No one's giving me the finger," Dean croaks. "I can manage." He shivers in the circle of the angel's arm, pulls the blanket tighter around himself, and then he looks right at Sam and reaches out. "With some more help."

It's like the foot that's been pressing him into the ground, pinning him in place beneath its weight, lifts off him, and Sam rockets upright, his turn to pounce. And then he's right there, under his brother's left arm, helping to support him, and it really is over.

  
Bobby picks up the call, and Sam can hear him through the open window.

"Oh, you know. Fumbling along, joining the dots. Drinking me dry. Can't talk about things to save their lives. Emotional cripples, the pair of them."

Sam hears his brother's low snort from beside him.

"He wouldn't know what the fuck to do with us if we started pouring it all out," Dean says gruffly. "The Winchester sisters."

Dean has told him nothing and Sam sees the opening, clears his throat, rocks the porch swing slightly as his brother gulps his beer. "Well. It might help to get some of it out—"

"No," Dean says firmly. "It wouldn't help. It wouldn't change a damn thing, in fact. Anyway. I'm fine. Good as new, thanks to Cas. Again. It never happened."

"But Dean, it did happen," Sam persists. "It's been two days and you haven't said much beyond—"

"Am I going to have to walk away from this, Sam?" his brother says harshly. "I told you—"

"Walk away from what?" Sam cuts in, suddenly nervous, and he knows he sounds it. "This conversation, right? That is what you mean? You don't mean walk away from—"

"Yes," Dean says, and Sam can see he's pressing the heel of one hand up against his eye.

"But you can't just… I mean, what will you – _Lilith_ , she's still out there, the seals, you can't do this by yourself, you need me with you, it…" Sam trails off, because Dean is looking at him with an expression of irritation touched with fondness.

"I mean the conversation, not you," Dean says, and he rolls his eyes theatrically, knocks his boot against Sam's. "Fuckin' idiot."

He offers Sam the bottle and Sam takes a slug of his own, feels it steady his nerves slightly. In his peripheral vision, he can see his brother's right leg start to jog up and down, the barest tremor, and he braces himself mentally because it's been Dean's tell ever since the woods, and maybe this time it signals more than his brother's intention to drink himself into a stupor so he can sleep through his nightmares.

"You know, there was a moment there back in Duluth when I did think about just walking away from it all," Dean says abruptly. He throws Sam a sidelong glance, waits a few seconds before he continues. "I knew you had the hexbag stashed somewhere, Sam, even before this all happened."

Sam waits, waits for the accusations, the questions, the attack, waits to be judged, readies himself for the onslaught.

"I thought about taking it," Dean says instead. "Just hitching out of there, and dammit all to Hell." He sinks another mouthful, gazes at the horizon.

Sam nods, blinks hard, and his voice catches on its own dryness because he isn't sure what he expected, but it wasn't this. "How do you feel about that now?" he ventures finally, and there's a second where his heart leaps for joy, where he imagines himself calling Ruby, getting a couple more of the tiny pouches from her, and driving off into the sunset with his brother just like…

"You mean do a Thelma and Louise?" Dean cuts into his train of thought, and Sam looks over, sees that his brother's eyebrow is raised, that his lips are curled in a wintry smile that doesn't reach his eyes. He shakes his head. "Not going to happen, Sam," he says sadly. "I'm doing this. Me. It's my responsibility, and I can't let the world go to Hell." He takes another mouthful of the liquor, clears his throat. "I know you're with me on this. But you have to stop what you're doing with her. And at the end?" Dean nudges Sam. "You have to let it go down like it's meant to."

He pushes up, stretches, sways on his feet for a second. "Whoah, head rush." He sweeps the lot with his eyes, squints at some indeterminate wreck in the middle distance. "Looks like an old Challenger," he muses to no one in particular, and he bends, picks up the toolbox he left on the top step, hops off the porch and ambles towards the junker, beer bottle hanging loosely from his fingers as he goes.

Sam stares at his brother's back as he walks away, and bitterness rises unexpected, from deep inside him, because it's resignation, passivity, it's fucking _submission_. He clenches his fists, wants to yell that he won't allow it, that it doesn't have to be this way, and he steels himself to holler it across the dusty lot. But he swallows back the cry because it means explaining the whys and hows, and seeing his brother's faith in him die a little more as he lays it out, exactly what it is he has been doing, what he _can_ do. And what he will do if he has to, because there is no way his brother is going back to Hell now he knows he might just be strong enough to stop it.

"Kathleen says they're closing the case," Bobby says suddenly from behind Sam, and he jumps.

The old man crosses in front of him, and then sits down heavily, his knees popping as he does. "They dynamited the building this morning, chances are they may never find the kid," he continues. "Everything ties back to the jumper. The truck was his, and there was plenty of DNA in it. Body parts up there where they were squatting, too."

Sam shrugs. "He was involved, we know that," he says dispiritedly. "He must've helped her dump the bodies, and Dean said they ran him down outside the motel."

Bobby sniffs. "He told me it was a car that ran him down," he comments absently. "Said the streetlights flickered on and off as well. That's why he thought it was Lilith." He tugs at his beard. "Don't make sense. Still, I guess he was under a lot of stress, could have gotten confused."

Sam nods slowly, but he's only half listening because there is something he has to know now Bobby has broached the topic of the kid. "Do you think I was right?" he fishes awkwardly.

Bobby waits a long moment. "If you're asking if I think you were right to use whatever it is that's in you to get your brother out of that mess, well. Tacit approval springs to mind, since it was me who told you to. If you mean the girl…" The old man leans forward, elbows on his knees, chin on his hands. "Does it matter what I think?" he continues cagily. "You thought you were right. So did Kathleen. I heard what she said back there. It's…" He stops, flaps a hand. "A kind of justice. I guess." He glances back at Sam. "Have you told Dean what you did?"

"No," Sam replies shortly. "I told him she jumped." He pauses a beat. "That's the story if he asks, Bobby."

Bobby raises an eyebrow, turns his focus back out onto the lot. Dean has the hood of the car up now, and clanging noises drift across to where they sit.

"I don't know what I'd have done if it was me in your shoes," the old man ventures after a few minutes. "I don't have any problems with the death penalty whatsoever. She wouldn't have gotten that in Minnesota. And I'm thinking maybe the families of those poor bastards she slaughtered might prefer their tax dollars didn't go to keeping a roof over her head and food in her belly, even if she did spend the rest of her years in a maximum security cell." He stops then, and the silence is loaded.

"But," Sam says.

"But. This is about you, Sam. You came to me, what, six years ago now? With your letter from Stanford and all your dreams shining out of your eyes? You were going to be a top-notch lawyer, you were going to fight the system." He laughs, but it's hollow. "It's just fuckin' ironic, son," he continues, not unkindly. " _That_ Sam would have been Missy Bender's defense lawyer." He shakes his head, looks back and nudges Sam with his knee. "Do you see the irony?" he says pointedly, and Sam nods dumbly.

"Like I said," Bobby continues. "I don't really know what I'd have done if it was up to me. But I do know that when you did that to her?" He shakes his head. "You weren't the Sam I know. Or knew. So I guess it just has me thinking. About what your brother said, about how he's afraid of what this, this—" He throws up his hands. "Messing about with Ruby," he finally ends, "is doing to you. And maybe you need to do some thinking about it too."

Sam doesn't reply, keeps his eyes facing front. Bobby shifts next to him, moves to get up. "What do you think Castiel meant when he said Dean was waiting?" he blurts out. "Do you think it meant he would have gone there when he – _departed_?"

Bobby pulls a face, settles back next to Sam again, gruffs out a harsh sound of frustration. "No clue. If we ever get a straight answer out of that guy, it'll be a cold day in Hell."

"Dean said that back in Duluth he thought about running," Sam confides. "About taking the hexbag and running." And he puts it out there. "Do you think that's an option?"

Bobby laces his fingers together across his belly, shrugs. "I think it's an option," he concedes. "Just not one your brother would take. He obviously didn't in Duluth." And then he digs Sam sharply in the ribs, glowers at him. "If you're thinking about sneaking one of those things on him and heading for the hills, you need to stop and take stock of what just happened after he got hold of one by mistake." He pauses a beat and his voice softens. "And anyway, it isn't up to you what happens, Sam."

Sam bites his lip. "But it could be," he insists. "I could use whatever it is that's in me to get him out of this mess too, Bobby. I can't let him do this alone, he isn't—"

"But maybe this mess is down to your brother, like Castiel said," the old man cuts in, his tone sharp again. He pushes up then, moves past Sam, pauses at the screendoor. "I think about him going back there and I can't even put into words how it makes me feel," he says quietly. "And I understand your instinct is to try to protect him, Sam. But maybe you aren't supposed to be involved in this one. And maybe it'll be okay, maybe his angel will see to that." He sighs. "Look, son, I remember what you said… about wanting control, feeling powerful. And I think you need to take a long hard look at what you're doing, because it's starting to sound like you're using your brother as an excuse."

The door slams shut behind him and Sam studies his boots for a long moment, then looks up and out over the lot again. He can't help the frown that forms as he sees Castiel standing next to the wreck. He chews on the knuckle of his thumb for a minute, sees the angel bend and take something out of the toolbox by his feet.

"No one's taking my brother away from me again," he breathes.

He roots out his phone, and she picks up straightaway.

  
The engine is a mess, its heart frozen and locked, caked with sand and the crap of years of misuse and lack of care, driven into sheer exhaustion until every precious moving part gradually slowed down, gasped its last, and simply stopped. Dean wonders if it's even worth it, wonders if it can be saved.

He senses Castiel before he cranes his neck to glance up and back, because he feels a sudden surge of peace, feels comforted. It's mildly unsettling and he can't really work out why, or maybe just doesn't want to face up to it, so he puts a stop to it then and there. "I see you're back," he grouses childishly. "Got something new for my to-do list?"

Castiel wears his intrigued and maybe affectionate look for just a second. "No," he replies. "And I wasn't gone. I've been here."

Dean scowls. "I thought you didn't watch."

"I don't watch," the angel says snippishly. "I _guard_."

Dean rolls his eyes. "I don't need guarding."

He turns back and squints down at what he's doing for a few minutes, still feels comforted despite his efforts not to. "You may as well be useful while you're here," he snaps from the bowels of the engine. "Hand me that wrench with the red handle. No, hang on. Be better doing this from underneath."

He backs out to find Castiel pointing laser-intense eyes at him.

"Are you alright, Dean?" the angel says.

"Super," Dean replies with a smirk. "Never better. I guess totally losing it when threatened by a teenager must be good for me, huh?"

Castiel considers him some more, eyebrows rising a little. "You were confused," he offers. "And under a great deal of stress. It seems to me that—"

"Oh for Christ's sake, Cas, stop with the psychiatrist's couch crap," Dean scoffs though a wave of annoyance. "Or no, wait a minute. Use your angelic powers to tell me how exactly I'm going last more than a heartbeat against Lilith when a sixteen-year-old girl can have me shitting myself in terror with nothing but a pigsticker and a pack of Camels at her disposal."

Castiel doesn't react at first, then, "Dean," he says on a sigh.

It's low, gentle, it's tender, and there's no expectation of any kind, no judgment, no pressure for Dean to bare his soul at all. And that's all it takes, and out of nowhere it bubbles up and over suddenly, and he's slamming the wrench down into the engine, over and over, feeling tears of misery prick his eyes until he's exhausted, and he sits down heavily in the dirt. "You're pushing me towards this," he chokes, scrubbing at his eyes as they sting, "and I know it's my responsibility and that it's all pre-ordained, and so much _crap_. I know you're following orders, Cas, doing your job. But I can't even talk to my brother about this. You sonsofbitches even took that away from me, because if he knows how fuckin' terrified I am he'll just, he'll. _Jesus_. Damn himself to Hell right behind me. Or laugh in my face and tell me I'm a coward depending on his mood." He barks out a derisive laugh. "Like I said. You're pushing me towards this final conflict deathmatch rumble in the jungle, _whatthefuckever_. And you know what's really ironic?"

The angel stares back, doesn't reply.

"You're the only one I can talk to about it," Dean says. "You're the only one who understands what it really means. For me, I mean, at the end of it all." He leans over, snags his beer from where he parked it, gulps the booze down.

Castiel hovers, seems uncertain, uneasy. And then he huffs out, sits down next to Dean, shoulder to shoulder.

"Sam said he told you to bring me back," Dean mutters. "You should have just left me."

He doesn't know if he's imagining it, but he swears he can feel a brief nudge of pressure against his shoulder.

"I didn't bring you back just because your brother told me to, Dean," the angel ventures acidly. "And before you say it, I didn't bring you back for the final conflict deathmatch rumble in the jungle _whatthefuckever_ , either."

Dean is mid-swallow, sprays out a mouthful of beer, actually laughs, and it feels good, and it feels unusual. "Well, I had a good idea where I was headed at the end of all this," he sputters. "And now I know. Corrupting an angel of the Lord into breaking the second commandment must be the eighth deadly sin for sure."

But Castiel is ignoring his deflection, doing that fascinated head-tilt thing he does, looking at Dean like he hung the moon, and his eyes are full. "I brought you back because I promised I wouldn't leave you there, Dean," he says simply. "And for – other reasons."

Dean stares back, and suddenly the need to be honest overwhelms him. "I know," he says, because he remembers it all, remembers how those reasons radiated from the angel in the dreams, remembers the comfort, the solace. The _love_. He doesn't really know if he can think about that too closely, although he's known all along really, since he first looked into the light down there and saw salvation, because he isn't sure if he really understands it, and he thinks it might be more than he deserves. And he can't resist ending the moment, so he snipes, "Did you close that doorway to doubt behind you, Cas?"

He sees the answering smile in his peripheral vision, and they sit in the dust in companionable silence for a few minutes, until Dean finds he's rubbing his brow. "What I said in Shoshoni, in the hospital, after Alastair," he mutters, and he swallows hard. "I meant it. I can talk the talk to Sam about taking Lilith down, but it's crap. I can't do this, Cas. Find someone else."

It's quiet for a minute before the angel replies. "Dean. You're the best man I know, and—"

"Tool," Dean cuts in crabbily. "You know a grand total of three men, and two of them don't even like you."

"Like I said before," Castiel continues patiently. "You're… _different_. Much good will come from you, Dean. I believe this."

His tone is assured, utterly convinced, it's _faith_ , and Dean knows he's gaping back at the angel. "Don't you get it, Cas?" he says finally. "I folded for that kid, and you expect me to go up against Lilith? I can't do it. It isn't in me to do it."

Castiel is looking back at him and his face is set in stone, but there's something in his eyes that might be sympathy.

"Fly away home, buddy," Dean says softly. "Tell the man upstairs he picked the wrong guy."

  
Ruby leans down, nips at Sam's neck as she licks away sweat. "Dean would have a cow if he knew we were using his car for this," she sniggers, but Sam's mind is only half on her.

"He's still saying he can do this alone," he murmurs, reaches up to wipe the red smear from his lips. "He damns himself, and he damns me too, when we could walk away."

Ruby stiffens slightly, looks up into Sam's eyes. "Walk away how?" she says sharply. "I didn't think there was an out clause."

Sam shakes his head, scowls. "There isn't, not officially. But he said something about using the hexbag to hide from the angels, and just leaving it all behind. We could do that, both of us, leave them to sort out the mess. You could make us some new hexbags and I could—"

"I don't think that's an option," Ruby cuts in, suddenly shrill, and it pulls Sam out of his reverie, has him looking up in irritation.

"I mean… it's too late, it's been set in motion," she continues, quieter now. "It can't be turned back, or postponed. Lilith's going to see this through. Hell on Earth, Sam, Violence, Cocytus, all of your brother's rambling – it's _real_ , and it's coming to a theater near us if you and Dean don't step up to the plate and—"

"She'll kill him," Sam interjects, and his voice breaks on it. "She'll drag him back to Hell."

Ruby is shaking her head, her eyes glowing comfort at him, and something more than that, something like loyalty. _Faith_.

"No, no, no… it doesn't have to be that way, Sam," she races out. "That's where you come in, isn't that what I've been telling you all along? You're the ace up our sleeve, don't you see? No matter how you feel."

It makes something swell up in Sam, something that casts his worry and fear aside. "I'll tell you how I feel," he spits. He can see his knuckles flare white as he clenches his fists, and digs his fingernails into his palms, and his jaw is set so tense he can barely speak. "I'm holding something inside me," he grates out through gritted teeth. "It's like it's simmering. And I want to let it go, Ruby. I want to let it go right now, so badly. I'm this close… I want to hurt and destroy. I want to turn it all into ashes and dust. I want to make holes in the world, and switch off the sun, and boil the oceans."

Ruby nestles closer, rubs circles on his chest, and croons in his ear.

"That's good, Sammy. We can use it to make things right again. We can use it to make everything go the way we want it to."


End file.
